OASD restructures with eye toward improving services for students, staff
For the past several months, the Oshkosh Area School District (OASD) has reorganized many of their administrative roles to become more responsive to student and faculty needs. At the end of the 2022-2023 school year, Dr. Dave Gundlach, former OASD Deputy Superintendent, and Dr. Andy Jones, former OASD Executive Director of Administration, retired from their positions. As a result of this, an opportunity arose for the district to define and better restructure its organization.
As part of this process, two new positions with hires were added: Director of Diversity and Director of Technology, which was formerly a part of the role of Deputy Superintendent. Three new people were hired to fill these roles: Anthony Miller Jr. as Director of Diversity, Jason Schmidt as Director of Technology, and Dr. Samuel Coleman as Assistant Superintendent of Instruction.
According to Superintendent Bryan Davis, a chief aim of the changes is to equip educational leaders to make meaningful change.
“As a part of this restructuring, one of the goals was to be able to provide additional support to the schools of the district related to principal support,” he said. “As well as creating stronger connections between the executive team, the district office, and each building for support.”
Deputy Superintendent and Executive Director of Administration were changed into two assistant superintendent positions.
“We have Assistant Superintendent of Operations, who handles safety and security and then oversees our business functions, HR functions and facilities on one side,” Davis said. “And then we have our Assistant Superintendent of instruction who oversees all the instructional and pupil’s services side. These changes make the lines a little bit more explicit about what their responsibilities are and then who reports to them as we move forward.”
Coleman, serving as Assistant Superintendent of Instruction, holds three masters degrees, as well as a Phd in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. He previously was a teacher and served as Director of Curriculum in the Milwaukee Area, and as Chief Academic Officer in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Coleman’s main responsibility is to supervise and support district level directors.
“My role as the assistant superintendent of instruction is to support, supervise and coordinate the work of our directors, one secondary director and then two elementary directors, as well as a director of student services and we also have a director of special education,” Coleman said. “The other aspect of my work is to strategize vision and direction for our school districts and to provide resources, coaching, and professional support to the people who lead our schools.”
This sort of work is very enjoyable for Coleman.
“I love it,” he said. “It’s what wakes me up in the morning, and it’s what keeps me up at night.”
Coleman’s overall goal is making sure that all students have the chance and tools to get their education, and that the district give the students that.
“My goal is to make sure that the classes you take and the resources that you have prepare you for the the goals and the vision that you have set for your life, and even if you don't know yet, I believe that what we do here in a school, should help provide options for you,” he said.
Technology is an integral part of managing a school district. The OASD, for the past 10 years, had technology combined with operations as Deputy Superintendent Gundlach was able to wear both hats. Davis was very thankful that they had someone with the expertise to fill both positions, but finding someone to fill a similar role was problematic.
“To go out and find somebody with that level of expertise and be able to run the operation side, as well as the technology side, was going to be too much,” Davis said. “My request was to be able to create that director of technology position and Jason Schmidt has been a really good asset.”
Prior to coming to Oshkosh, Schmidt was an instructional technology coach at Oconto Falls and was a technology coordinator in Omaha, Nebraska. His role includes overseeing all the technology within the district.
“I supervise all of the technology operations within the district whether that’s internet access, Chromebooks, filtering, phone security, or the eAcademy program,” he said.
Another role of Schmidt is to be there in case some technology stops working or for the district's cybersecurity.
“If something breaks, I help people identify what needs to be done, which people then do, and I am also involved in a lot of the strategic decisions that are happening in the district,” Schmidt said. “One of our priorities is on cybersecurity, and to develop some of those policies and ensure that those things are done.”
Schmidt is in the process of adapting to the new role, but overall enjoys it.
“I’m like a fish to water,” he said. “I really enjoy the technical aspect of serving students and staff, but I'm very much in my comfort zone and it's been a good, smooth transition for me.”
Schmidt’s vision is to make sure that everybody has the right tools available.
“My vision is that everybody has the tools that they need when they need them, high reliability, high availability, and all in support of high quality students,” he said.
After the district finalizes a proposal based on feedback from the previous year, they have to present it to the school board. The school board then gave their feedback which included the addition of a director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Davis feels this position has provided positive benefit to the district.
“The position the school board suggested, which Anthony Miller Jr. has filled, has been a very valuable asset,” Davis said. “And so that’s been really helpful for family and student engagement and being able to work with some professional development for staff.”
Miller Jr. previously came from a nine year role as the Scholars for Success manager at Fox Valley Tech, as well as a role at the Milwaukee Public System and Appleton Area School District.
“My responsibilities include identifying inequality and inequities in our system, and coming up with proactive and reactive ways to address them to create policies and procedures so these inequities don't exist moving forward,” he said.
Miller also has to understand what the community requires, gauging the needs of students, educators and community members.
“I work collaboratively with all those stakeholders to help improve our disproportionality and our discipline practices by researching the best practices, developing cultural competence training,” he said.
Miller is thrilled about the potential of the work he is doing.
“I am working towards seeing all of our literacy and numeracy rates achievements to go up,” he said.
Overall Davis felt these changes were necessary.
“When you get to a district that's our size, many times, buildings feel like they’re on an island,” he said. “They're just running like their own business if you will, and we’re all connected from a system level. So the idea is, let’s strengthen that connection, you know, between the building level and the district level as well as an opportunity for us to get a new set of eyes to improve the district for our students.”
by Fahad Mian
Published October 30 2023
Oshkosh West Index vol 120 Issue II