Outgoing Superintendent Talks Career, Contracts, Future

Menomonee Falls Superintendent Keith Marty will officially leave the district July 1 for a new job as superintendent of a district in suburban St. Louis. Before he left Falls, Menomonee Falls Patch editor Carl Engelking sat down with Marty for a candid interview about his career, contracts and the future of the district.

Marty served the district for 22 years, 12 years as the assistant superintendent and 10 years as superintendent.

How would you describe your career in one word?

“Satisfying. Personally, very satisfying. To be able to live and work in a community where your children go to school, you enjoy the community and you make a lot of friends. But also, to work in a community where you are asked to take on a leadership role and make some tough decisions. Overall, very satisfying.”

How would you like the community remember you?

“I hope they remember that I tried to do my best. I tried to focus the community’s and the school district’s attention on students. I know the teachers and the taxpayers sometimes worry about ‘our’ situation, but I think a superintendent is charged with doing what we need to with the available resources for students.”

“I hope people would respect that I worked hard, both in terms of hours and concentration. I hope they remember me as somebody who cared about people – young people and adults.”

“I hope they would remember that for a school or community to be successful we need to work together. I hope that I fostered relationships in and out of the district that built collaborative and cooperative opportunities.”

Some people view the district as being in a mess. How do you feel about leaving the district in the situation it is in?

“To be honest with you I would have felt worse leaving the district without a contract. I understand people’s frustration with this issue, but if I would have walked out on my last day without completing our work with the teachers, I would have considered that a mess.”

“I consider what we were able to do recently as a real good chance for the new superintendent to get off to a better start. The next couple months will bear out more about our decision than we know now right now. But what we know now is that we don’t have to make more cuts, and we know we can move forward without affecting programs and opportunities for kids.”

“What we’ve created here is an assurance for next year. The mess is really more external than internal. There’s a mess in Madison, that’s where it really is – and I’m sure they’ll straighten it out. But what we need to worry about is what we do in Menomonee Falls.”

“I understand people’s frustrations, but I firmly believe we are in a better place than we were a month ago.”

How is education in Wisconsin changing right now?

“Even if collective bargaining goes away we will sit down and work with our teachers. It will be different, but we still have to work with people. Some people fail to understand that you can’t have a teaching staff that you are at least working and communicating with. No matter what, collective bargaining or not, we need to work with them to understand what their needs are.”

“The world is going to get more competitive, and we want to have the best teachers in Menomonee Falls we possibly can have. We can demand tremendous more concessions, but I believe people will start making decisions to go other places. Because other places will understand how important it is to have the best people and resources in place.”

Could the district have made more cuts?

“If you decide not to work with your union, and basically decide this is our opportunity to take everything we possibly can – OK you can do that. Or, the other decision you can make is you can continue to have a relationship and continue to work with the teachers. But you need to ask yourself, ‘What’s the long term relationship going to be with our teachers, and what’s going to happen when I go out and attempt to recruit teachers?’”

“I think the better choice is to acknowledge that there are changes, and teachers and people understand that, but we don’t have to end our relationship. We don’t have to abuse people.”

What are your two greatest accomplishments as superintendent?

“I really am proud of our growth in student learning and achievement. Are we where we should be? No. But we’ve closed tremendously from where we were. I’m very proud that, although we have a lot of work to do, we’ve come a long way in 10 years.”

“After I became superintendent, we focused on what we would like our facilities to look like by 2010. We identified about $40 million in needs for the district. We really — through referendum, the community stepping up and our own efforts to put dollars in capital improvement — we are somewhere in the vicinity of having completed $34 million of work in 10 years.”

What was your biggest mistake as an administrator?

“I would say we probably didn’t plan effectively for the first couple referendums. We didn’t listen as much as we needed to the community. We needed to think more about what was really important. Once we did that, we passed the third referendum overwhelmingly.”

What have you learned about community as a leader?

“You certainly understand the variety of opinions that are out there and they are widespread. Three-quarters of our population doesn’t have a student in the school district. We have to continually work hard to educate everyone about the schools.”

“A lot of what people hear about schools comes from reading or listening to the radio and it doesn’t always apply to their local district. We have to continually work hard to educate all the public about what’s going on in their district.”

“I’ve learned that if you take the time to educate the public, listen to the public, and make yourself available to the public, that it only reaps benefits. People want to know that you are listening and you are giving more than lip service to the public.”

How have you changed as a person in 10 years as superintendent?

“I’ve become more patient, believe it or not. I know that good ideas, or good work takes time. I’ve learned that disappointment or defeat isn’t the end of the world. It’s just a sign that you need to go at it from a different approach.”

“I think I’ve become a better listener, and I understand that I don’t have all the answers. I’ve certainly become appreciative of community, and of the variety of ideas that are out there.”

What does the future of Menomonee Falls School District look like?

“Menomonee Falls will get through this. If we continue to use our principles of working together, valuing education and doing the right thing, we’ll get through this and be fine. We will look different, but we have to work together and look at our values.”

“Public education, though it has its flaws, unlike anything else we offer is a chance to raise everybody up. We are educating the brightest of the bright to kids that are very disabled and everyone in between. We need to understand that we’ve made tremendous progress in educating kids. It’s made this community and this country what it is today.”