The Ceremony - University of La Verne

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION & ORGANIzATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Macro
Managers
Arturo Delgado and Gary Thomas share more than La Verne alumni status: Both are
Superintendents of Schools of counties with school systems among the largest in the nation.
By Lisa O’Neill Hill Community Engagement
Growing up in East Los Angeles as one
of seven children, Arturo Delgado
learned to look out for his siblings.
His parents instilled in Delgado a hard work
ethic. Teachers recognized his potential.
“I had some influential teachers throughout
my life,” said Delgado, who is now
the Los Angeles County Superintendent
of Schools, the top education leader of the
nation’s most populous and diverse county.
“I admired them. I guess that admiration
turned into wanting to be like them.”
Gary Thomas understands that perspective.
Working in education felt like his calling.
“I feel like education is really the noblest
profession there is,” said Thomas, San Bernardino
County Superintendent of Schools.
“It really is an extremely important aspect of
our democratic society.”
As superintendents, Delgado and Thomas
share similar responsibilities, concerns and
challenges. They are committed to helping
children receive a quality education, even as
support for public education has eroded and
budget cuts have created large obstacles.
They also share something else: both men
earned doctorates from the University of La
Verne’s College of Education & Organizational
Leadership (CEOL). The superintendents
say La Verne helped them further their
careers through its rigorous program.
“We prepare leaders,” said Mark Goor,
Dean of the College of Education & Organizational
Leadership. “People who want to be
high-level administrators and leaders come
to the University of La Verne.”
In fact, a quarter of superintendents and
administrators in California have earned
their doctorates from La Verne.
14 VOICE Summer/Fall 2011
Delgado, who was appointed to his post
in July, is responsible for ensuring the financial
and academic stability of 80 K-12 school
districts that serve more than 2 million preschool
and school-age children.
He began his career in education more
than 30 years ago as a bilingual teacher in the
Baldwin Park and Rowland Unified School
“I had some influential
teachers throughout my
life. I admired them. I
guess that admiration
turned into wanting to be
like them.”
– Arturo Delgado
Los Angeles County
Superintendent of Schools
Districts. Delgado said he recognized early in
his career that he wanted to be an administrator.
He aspired to be a school principal because
he enjoyed being around the students
and working with teachers.
After administrative posts for the Rowland
and Norwalk/La Mirada Unified School
Districts, Delgado served as an elementary
school principal for more than eight years for
the Azusa Unified School District.
As he began to get to know a number of
people in the district administration, he realized
it wasn’t that much of a jump to become
superintendent. Prior to his position in Los
Angeles County, Delgado was the superintendent
of the San Bernardino City Unified
School District. While the magnitude of his
new job may be much larger, the underlying
goals are the same, he said.
“It’s incredible,” he said of the scale of
his new position. “The one thing that stays
constant is that when you are working with
people they want clarity, they want articulation.
They want to look to a leader they can
trust. The scale gets bigger but those things
don’t change,” he said.
Education has changed significantly in the
more than 30 years that Delgado has been in
his career. “Every decade it seems to be a different
emphasis,” he said.
And just about every decade brings a new
challenge: “We are trying to look to the future
to see how we change our message and
prioritize and be able to compete with fewer
resources and how we build partners to do
that.”
In the short-term, the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors has already identified
challenges for Delgado to tackle. He has
been charged with improving the education
in camps and juvenile halls across the county.
Delgado has been visiting those facilities to
assess the caliber of education and see how
well educators are trained and guided for
teaching that population.
“It’s a big job,” he said. “We have over
12,000 kids in those halls. The quality of that
education has been lacking for some time for
a number of reasons. A big part of that is
what will happen when they transition to a
regular school. How far behind are they?”
Continued on 16
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION & ORGANIzATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Superintendent Arturo Delgado oversees K-12 education of more than 2 million children in 80 Los Angeles County school districts.
Walt Weis image
As San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, Gary Thomas sets the educational pace for 417,000 students in 538 schools.
Jeanine Hill image
Summer/Fall 2011 VOICE 15