March 29, 2024

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It's Your Education

Roseland Public Colleges names Santa Cruz educator as new superintendent

The Roseland Community Educational institutions board has hired a veteran Santa Cruz County educator to be the future superintendent of the 2,800-student university district In Santa Rosa.

Héctor Rico, who has labored as teacher and administrator at the nearby and state level, is presently the director of diversity, fairness and inclusion at Pacific Collegiate University, a charter college in Santa Cruz.

He is established to consider over as acting superintendent in Roseland in May perhaps, said Janice Siebert, president of the university board.

“We’re so happy about what’s heading on,” Siebert said. “He has the capabilities that we will need, performing with community as properly as teachers, principals, college students and family members.”

Rico, 54, stated he was thrilled to get began in Roseland.

“I’ve in no way been frightened of change,” he explained. “That stated, I’m human, so of study course there is a little perception of nervousness.”

Rico’s arrival in the district will come on the heels of a reckoning in new months over inequity and discrimination, immediately after pupils and alumni shared testimonies of adverse procedure as men and women of coloration, LGBTQ students and users of other marginalized groups attending Roseland educational institutions.

Superintendent Amy Jones-Kerr, who had led the district because 2014, resigned in late November, a month soon after the criticism-stuffed university board assembly, although she explained her departure was unrelated to the tales shared. Jones-Kerr has remained on paid out administrative depart by means of the college yr whilst. Laurie Biggers, formerly the university district’s director of curriculum and evaluation, stepped into the acting superintendent purpose.

Siebert reported that the school board believes Rico’s background and expertise equip him to supply what Roseland neighborhood customers have said the district desires in order to move the university district in a favourable direction.

Rico, who immigrated to the United States as a baby from the town of Nicolas Bravo in Chihuahua, Mexico, was the very first in his relatives to graduate from substantial faculty and the initially to show up at faculty. He acquired a bachelor’s degree and a bilingual teaching credential from UC Santa Barbara, a masters of faculty administration from Azusa Pacific College and an administrative credential from Sacramento Condition ahead of getting his doctorate in education from UC Berkeley.

“I hardly ever imagined I would be in this place,” Rico reported. “So I’m deeply humbled and just about every working day I wake up with this perception of obligation and that I have obtained to do suitable by my group.”

Rico invested a number of many years as a trainer, initially in bilingual 3rd and 4th quality lessons and then as a 7th quality language arts and social research class for English-learners. He then served as a high school administrator at Santa Fe Superior Faculty in the Whittier Union Superior College District, and then worked with bilingual courses at the California Division of Training.

Among 2016 and 2019, Rico served as superintendent of Alisal Union College District, in which he centered on applying a spouse and children useful resource heart and a Whole Youngster Division aimed at social-psychological very well-being, Roseland Community Colleges stated in a news release. Rico also worked on expanding digital know-how devices and obtain throughout the district.

Siebert reported that just one of Rico’s strengths throughout the job interview process was his refusal to get himself too significantly.

“We have to have another person who has that humility and self-assurance,” she reported. “We don’t want somebody who’s out there who our dad and mom and team just can’t relate to.”

His three-12 months agreement begins July 1, with a starting up income of $207,800.

His graduate levels also will make him eligible for a $1,600 annual stipend, and he is in line for yearly raises based mostly on the normal share of the negotiated raises for academics. No other raises were being provided in the deal, Siebert stated.

Roseland Community Schools encompasses 6 faculties serving learners from transitional kindergarten by means of 12th quality. That involves charter campuses Roseland Accelerated Middle Faculty, Roseland University Prep and Roseland Collegiate Prep, which also have a charter school board with which the superintendent operates. The district employs about 140 instructors and operates on a finances of close to $31 million.

Rico stated he will use his original weeks in Might to concentrate on conference individuals inside of and adjacent to the university district. Those people discussions will enable him decide which locations to create upon, rework or, as he place it, depart alone.

“I’m looking ahead to doing work with the board, the neighborhood and the group advocates that have some perception that I really don’t have into the district and the heritage,” Rico claimed. “Together I consider we can determine how to move forward.”

You can achieve Team Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay.