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New superintendent Bruce Thomas is used to challenges
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By Craig Moorhead
Special for the Argus
Bruce Thomas may be new to the Caledonia school district, but he’s no stranger to the field of education. “I’ve been involved with education in one shape or form for close to 40 years,” he said in a recent interview, “as a teacher, principal, administrator and superintendent.
“I started out teaching at Stevens Point, Wis. Then I went to Rochester, Minn., and then I went to Cottage Grove, which is a suburb of St. Paul. I taught accounting and economics.”
While at Cottage Grove, Thomas took on his first principal position. Later he decided to take his post graduate work one step further.
“I went back to school and got a doctorate (in education),” he explained. That was at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
“It was an enjoyable thing,” he noted. “I was in Nebraska in 1981-1982. It was good to go back to school. It was sort of a rejuvenation process… get yourself cranked up to do something. That’s probably true here too in the respect that I’ve been out of it for a period of time. It was good for our family, too, to go down to Lincoln. At that time we had two children and the third was born down there, (now) we have four kids.”
Thomas’ next challenge was serving as a district superintendent. “I was superintendent in Wheaton, which is in the western part of Minnesota,” he said, “I was there for six years. I was superintendent in Worthington (Minn.) for seven years, and then I was superintendent in St. Cloud, of the district schools, for five years. Then I qualified for the ‘rule of 90’ so I retired.”
Still looking for a challenge, Thomas went back to work. “I went to work for Edison Schools, which is a for-profit entity, as vice president of their Mid-Atlantic region, which would be New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington Delaware. They’re the largest for-profit (school management system). At that time they had around 70,000 kids nationwide, primarily in urban areas, primarily charter schools.”
Once more taking on a superintendent position, Thomas understands the dynamics of the job. “Education is unique in this sense, that it’s dependent upon the state for its financing and the challenges of educating children don’t seem to stay the same. They continue to get more challenging, and as they get more challenging money is also a challenge to provide adequate funding. Particularly in this economic climate. The schools have their issues and local residents have their budgeting constraints, as does the state.”
Thomas knows what it’s like to be thrown into the middle of the fray. “The first day on the job in two districts, at St. Cloud and Worthington, I was to talk about referendums. At least I’m not doing that right now.”
Asked about the delayed funding that the State of Minnesota is providing for school districts, Thomas gave his perspective: “What you’ve done is to shift the burden in a sense from the state government to school districts. Then you also have local government aid (being cut), and cities and so forth have their issues also. It’s across the board.” Perhaps having a background in economics isn’t such a bad thing in this day and age.
What would the new superintendent like residents to know? “With my observation of the (ISD #299) schools in the short period of time I’ve been here and the people that I’ve met, I think that the community should be proud of the schools and the staff that they have.”
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