Leading a school district is no easy task. Increased accountability and drastically reduced resources, coupled with the challenges of collective bargaining, are factors that can make long-term success in the position the exception rather than the rule.

This is one reason why ACSA’s 2009 Superintendent of the Year Gary Smuts of ABC Unified School District is remarkable. He came to work at ABC 35 years ago as a teacher and never left.

Taking the helm of the 20,000-plus ADA district in 2005, Smuts has seen excellent success in the district, which has earned 10 California Distinguished Schools honors, five Title 1 Achievement Awards, two national Blue Ribbon Schools titles, a Model Continuation High School Award, a Distinguished New and Emerging Magnet School of Merit Award, three Magnet School Distinction Awards and six Golden Bell Awards. The district API score has increased every year under Smuts’ leadership, most recently coming in at 53 points higher than the state average.

Smuts explains that the district culture has always been very conducive for both teachers and school leaders, ever since he entered as a teacher.

“My principal and the whole district really respected the work of teachers,” he said. “That was the culture here and always has been. It was a sense that all of us play a role in supporting student learning.”

This attitude, he said, permeates everyone in ABC, from the bus drivers on up to the superintendent.

“The other thing I liked about the district is that we did not have a one-size-fits-all mentality for our high schools, middle schools, elementary schools and preschools,” Smuts said. “We believe that you not only serve a distinct and unique community, but also each school is its own community.

“What changes education is when you teach beyond the bells. That’s been our culture here. It’s a very honorable culture and it keeps us in line with thinking about supporting the work teachers and students do.”

Annually, Smuts has performed his “Running for Reading” program for elementary school students. In this, he has run to various schools, then given a talk to students about the value of diet, exercise and reading. Teachers will track the students’ reading, and awards are given to the top readers.

“It’s a great opportunity to talk to students about nurturing their brains and also their bodies,” Smuts said. “My goal has always been to get a million hours of reading outside of school. We haven’t hit that yet, but last year we got about 830,000 hours.”

Even though he has been involved in athletics since he was a high school student, as both an athlete and a coach, Smuts still chuckles recalling his initial foray into Running for Reading.

“The first run I did was about 13 miles on the hottest day of the year,” he joked.

Another area of success for Smuts has been his focus on preparing all students for college. One interesting endeavor has been working with ABC Unified career technical education students.

“We feel that career technical education is a pathway to college for a lot of our students,” Smuts said. “We’ve started a college experience in a lot of our career technical education programs in high school, particularly in a partnership we have with Cerritos Community College.”

This goes for students interested in such various areas as automotive technology, cosmetology, pharmaceutical technician, child development, culinary arts and more. Recently Smuts has been exploring the concept of “middle college,” where high school and community college is blended. In such a program, high school graduates might also graduate with an AA degree. And CTE would be a component of this.

“We’re thinking in terms of keeping kids engaged who might otherwise start looking outside ABC for interests,” Smuts said.

As passionate as Smuts is for these programs, his voice really brims with enthusiasm when he talks about another aspect of leading a district: collective bargaining.

Smuts and ABC management seem to have an unusually collaborative and cordial relationship with labor. He said a large part of this is owing to the ABC Federation of Teachers’ approach as a partner with the district on student achievement. In fact, local union reps recently changed their designation to “learning representatives.”

The working relationship has been so successful that recently the American Federation of Teachers announced that the ABC local union would be one of eight bargaining units nationwide – out of 126 applicants – to receive an AFT Innovation Fund grant. The Innovation Fund challenges unions and districts to “push the envelope to improve schools, teaching and learning in exciting, new ways.”

Another reason cited by Smuts for labor-management success is their annual PAL Retreats.

“For 11 years now, union and management have gone on Partnership Administration and Labor Retreats,” he said. “Every year the union reps and the principals will meet and talk about the initiatives we want. We’re both on the same page because, like us, the No. 1 job of the union is student achievement in our district.”

In addition, Smuts meets weekly with local union representatives.

“We spend most of our time talking about resources and strategies and programs to increase student achievement,” he said. “We still have our bread and butter issues that come up, but we engage in problem solving and don’t beat each other up.

“It’s a different way to do business. I don’t accept the paradigm that unions and management have to disagree on matters of student achievement. We don’t negotiate that in a negative way. We sit down and we ask ourselves: ‘What can we do to increase the success of teachers? What can we do to increase student academic achievement?’ We spend most of our time doing that. And we take care of the bread-and-butter issues in the same professional manner.”

Despite having an obviously full plate with all the responsibilities of running a school district, Smuts has also felt it important to contribute to the profession overall by being an active ACSA member. He is a current member of the state Superintendency Council and a past member of the Legislative Action Committee.

“ACSA is a wonderful organization,” he said. “It’s the only game in town when it comes to administrators influencing the direction of California education. It is THE most important organization for administrators in California.”

After initially feeling humbled and honored when notified of this award, Smuts reacted in typically humorous fashion.

“I don’t know whether to chastise my staff for lying about me or to praise them for sending the application,” Smuts laughed, and then grew more serious. “As a superintendent we get to take credit for the great work that others do, and I have tremendous people around me that work together and get along wonderfully. They do remarkable work. And I just get to take credit for their wonderful work.”

Gary Smuts will be honored, along with 18 other Administrators of the Year, at the Nov. 6 Awards Presentation and President’s Celebration in the Regency Grand Ballroom at the Sacramento Hyatt Hotel.