At a special meeting on January 25, the Sitka School Board made its official offer to hire Dr. Deidre Jenson as the next superintendent for the district, after choosing her as the sole finalist from a pool of nine candidates. KCAW’s Katherine Rose spoke with Jenson briefly ahead of the meeting about her experiences working in Alaska and her plans once she steps into the role on July 1:
KCAW: You just found out of the nine candidates for superintendent of the city school district, you are the sole finalist, I would be curious to know how you feel knowing that you’ll likely be sick as next superintendent.
JENSON: I’m very excited, as is my husband. I’m also very honored. Because it’s a great school district, so I’m very honored to be that finalist, you know, the sole finalist and then selected, so honored and excited.
KCAW: And you’ve worked all over Alaska in education in a number of roles. In the last half-year or so that you’ve been working in the district, how does it compare to the other districts you’ve worked for? What are some of the district’s unique strengths or challenges that that you’ve noticed?
JENSON: Well, Sitka is a little larger than some of the communities that I’ve been in. But it still has a small town feel. That’s an important thing for me and my husband, to live in a rural community. It’s a family feeling and I felt that with the school district as well. And the challenges, along the same lines, though, when you’re smaller, you end up having to wear more hats. There’s just a little less funds to go around, and a little less personnel to do the job, do you have to do multiple duties and multiple things. But I’m pretty excited. We have a really strong team at the district, and across the district: teachers, paraprofessionals. office staff. I’m excited to be working and being a part of that team and leading that team.
KCAW: And moving forward, what what are your top few goals for the district going to be in the coming years?
JENSON: We started conversations with the strategic plan, around the strategic plan this fall, and those need to continue. We did a little bit more follow up in January at the teacher in-service, and board members came to that as well. We need to re-focus a little bit and just really hone in on exactly what we want to do. We need to continue to build relationships. Relationships are key, and that’s why like small districts and smaller towns. Building those relationships is is key. I think part of that is getting all the stakeholder input on what we really do need to focus on. And one of the things that we need to figure out is the budget for this upcoming year, and we’ll be working on that yet, and seeing where we can go from there.
Jenson negotiated a three year contract with a starting salary of 150,000 and the option for her salary to increase in the second and third year, pending a favorable performance review from the Board. Jenson’s official start date is July 1.
