MIDDLETOWN- The Middletown Unified School District Board of Trustees held their first meeting with Jeff Crane as the new Superintendent of Schools on Wednesday, May 15. Board of Trustees President Larry Allen was absent so Zoi Bracisco, Trustee Clerk, ran the meeting and started the unanimous welcoming of the new district leader.
Superintendent Crane spent the last six years as Director of Education in the Calaveras Unified School District where he supported both general and special education programs. He has 16 years of school administration experience including four years as a high school assistant principal and 12 years as principal at elementary and middle schools. In his role as a Team Leader in ASCA’s Summer Leadership Institute he has impacted professional development for principals throughout California.
In his remarks, Superintendent Crane noted that he has already waded into his 100-day Entry Plan. On day eight of his tenure, he has visited all eight campuses and been to High School baseball and softball games. In his listening tour he is asking students and each member of the district team he encounters questions about what is working well, what is exciting about the district, and what needs fixing. So far, he has heard that there is solid teamwork within the district, that the community has a rising sense of leadership and that there needs to be increased clarity in district communications.
Looking at looming budget shortfalls in the district, Crane plans to examine each job vacancy as an opportunity to innovate rather than replace the position wherever possible. The presentation of a Third Provisional Budget report indicated some of the fiscal challenges with the evaporation of COVID funding sources that had been covering deficit spending, new collective bargaining agreements that had not been factored into projections and student attendance rates below 95%.
In other business the Citizen Board Oversight Committee (CBOC) submitted their annual report to the Board of Trustees, and it was accepted.
The Trustees also interviewed two candidates to replace a Board resignation until the November elections and decided on Nathan Willis who recently moved to the area. He is employed as a teacher in the Santa Rosa school district and comes from a family of educators.
Asked for comment, Superintendent Crane told the Record-Bee: “Middletown has had unsettled leadership for several years, so my coming in is an opportunity to have more settled leadership and hopefully I’ll be here for quite a while. …When I think about the title of Superintendent, I’m more like the caretaker. It’s our job as the governing team to run the schools in the way the community wants us to. It was here before we got here, it’s still going to be here when we’re done.”
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