Tracey Tackles Schools’ Central Office

With a new chief financial officer in place and more help on the way, Superintendent Iline Tracey is beginning to restore order to Central Office.

Tracey (pictured) shared her efforts with school board members at Monday night’s Finance & Operations Committee in a conference room at the district’s Meadow Street headquarters, during presentations on how the district is allocating $33.8 million in new grants and mitigating an $8.4 million deficit in this year’s budget.

Tracey said she has asked schools to institute a spending freeze for any non-essential hires or purchases.

“We’re trying to make sure we’re not going to spend more just to spend it,” she said. ​“We’re asking, ​‘Do you really need this?’ If you do, we’re not going to say no.”

Phillip Penn, the district’s new chief financial officer who began work on Monday, said he’s also started looking over the budget for savings. He said he plans to conduct a line-by-line analysis of how salaries have changed for staffing positions. And he said that he’d share any plans for budget mitigations as soon as possible.

“If you don’t share the bad news, the good news has no credibility,” Penn said.

Throughout the rest of Central Office, Tracey said she’s also refilling the ranks of administrators — after top talent left the district during Carol Birks’s tenure as superintendent.

Using the state’s $15.3 million Alliance grant, she’s creating three new positions that will pick up some of the departed employees’ old job responsibilities.

A director of curriculum and instruction, partly filling in for Tracey’s initial role as assistant superintendent, will essentially supervise the curriculum supervisors. ​“Academic achievement must be a focus,” Tracey explained. ​“We need a designated person just to pay attention to that.”

A professional learning administrator, patly filling in for Robin Metaj’s role as lead teacher-librarian, will set up district-wide training sessions, based on the findings from this summer’s curriculum audit.

Principals will still set up their own professional development around their school’s theme, but this person will develop ​“a more strategic focus” for the district’s priorities, Tracey said. She said they’ll work on leadership training to prepare a corps of administrators-in-waiting.

That administrator will also pick up Metaj’s work of creating a digital professional development library with modules and lessons that teachers could download. ​“We’re spending a lot on contractors,” Tracey said, that could be saved ​“if we start building in-house.”

Finally, a college and career supervisor, partly filling in for Dolores Garcia-Blocker’s role as college and career readiness director, will oversee the opening of three new College & Career Centers at James Hillhouse HS, Wilbur Cross HS and High School in the Community, where students can go for help with their post-graduation plans, like applying for financial aid or writing résumés.