John Reed Leaves Mark After Two Decades Of Leading Newtown’s Schools

By Tanjua Damon

It has been 20 years since Superintendent of Schools John R. Reed began his tenure in Newtown. He will most likely be remembered as a visionary who set high standards and encouraged the entire educational community to work as a team to meet them.

He has been a superintendent for almost 30 years. He found his way to Newtown after reading an ad for the position in a national magazine. He and his wife Christina, son John, and daughter Elizabeth were heading through Newtown on the way to vacation in Massachusetts at the time. The family pulled off I-84 at Exit 10 and took a spin around town and thought it was nice. It was the only town in Connecticut to which Dr Reed applied. He is the longest-serving superintendent in one town in the state.

“I’m completing 28 years as a superintendent. It’s a very long time to be a superintendent of schools,” Dr Reed said. “I just concluded that if I’m going to do anything differently with the time I have left, this was probably going to be as good of time as any.”

When Dr Reed arrived in Newtown in 1982 he saw a district with potential and after 20 years, he still uses the word potential to describe the district that has traveled so far under his guidance.

“I was very optimistic about the opportunity when I walked through the door and I think as I met people and got to know the community I just thought about the potential. Because when you come as a superintendent, you don’t come as a caretaker. It’s very important to believe that working with people you’re going to find ways to bring out some improvement over time,” he said. “I think the district is a different district than it was 20 years ago. But I think the culture that is in place, the understanding of continuous improvement, means to me that the staff understands how it can get to that next level of improvement.”

Dr Reed believes that the district will continue to move its potential to a higher level providing quality education for the students it serves.

“When you are working with students and you’re dealing with human potential it means you are never going to reach a time when you can sit back and rest and say you’ve reached the mountain top because the nature of human potential is so broad and so profound in many ways,” he said. “I don’t think we understand the reservoir of potential we haven’t tapped into. So I think we are in a great position to make some interesting areas of growth in the services and learning opportunities we provide to students.”

About 12 years ago the staff of the school system designed a district philosophy and model, which carried the mission statement, “All Children Can And Will Learn Well.” It was developed over three years. It was implemented to show that improvement comes each year.

“If you believe in continuous improvement, then the whole focus is what do you do? What do you learn in order to try do a little bit better each year?” Dr Reed said. “What could be put in place to help us become a better school system. In fact, it led to a meeting with about 900 people in the auditorium where we told them we need to do a better job. Competition in the world caused everyone to question how they could do better.”

Dr Reed believes the model has set the district in a direction that involves everyone — staff and students –– with self-direction, self-evaluation, and a way to meet the needs of all students who often times learn in very different ways.

“I have a level of satisfaction because I think it was the right decision. I think an organization needs to have principles of management it’s going to follow, and I think in large part the work that we did in the mid to late 80s is very responsible for the culture we have in the school system today,” he said.

“One of the things we were doing in this transition was [to recognize] a head of an organization has an important role, but it doesn’t mean you are the most intelligent person who knows how everyone does their job. What you have to do is set in place the kind of system the people closest to the challenge or problem are asked to roll up their sleeves and answer the question, ‘How we can do a better job?’”

 Many of the superintendent’s supporters have pointed out the integrity and character Dr Reed displays. He is a leader with a strong values system who puts children first, they note. He does not feel he has changed over the years as his role in education has changed.

“I think I’m honest to the fault. I think I try to in part lead by modeling behaviors I see in other people or expect from other people. I think I do deeply care about students,” he said. “I’m pretty much who I was as a teacher, as a principal. I think I’m guided by the same values. Teachers are amazingly important people, and I think it’s a privilege to work with kids. You’re never at a loss for incentive to want to get up in the morning and get to work.”

Dr Reed could not think of a “worst moment” in his tenure as superintendent, but felt that decisions were made that best suited the needs of the students.

 “I’m very comfortable in shades of gray,” he noted. “You’re going to have days when you are euphoric and days when you are disappointed.”

Dr Reed is proud of how the district dealt with the statewide reform of education in the early 1990s. It was a rough period of time as battles arouse politically and religiously.

“When you’re a suburban superintendent you are sort of hired to reassure people that things are wonderful. This was at a time when American education was being trashed,” he said. “I do believe within that we needed to step up to the plate. There’s no shortcut here to an excellent education. There’s a lot to do.”

A Sense Of Humor

The superintendent said he is also proud of his involvement in dramatic productions at the high school and the occasional opportunities he had to teach semester courses at the high school.

 “We got a chance to laugh at ourselves. For me to be singing and dancing on the stage, I think people like to know you can laugh at yourself. I know I’m very serious. People only see me in the serious mode. I think it’s important to know like everyone else I have a variety of things which compose who I am as an individual,” he said. “I was doing it to remind myself how difficult teaching was and to be around kids every morning for 45 minutes for a semester.”

Being a superintendent is no easy job, but he said he has enjoyed the challenge over the years. With it comes great responsibility and decisions that have to accommodate many points of view.

“Superintendent of Schools it is a fairly lonely job. You work for everybody. You work for the board, you represent the parents, teachers, students, administrators, parents, taxpayers who don’t have anyone in school,” Dr Reed said. “It’s the nature of the job. There’s just one of you. The moments you have to get closer to teachers, parents and students, school board members they are always important to me because there is somewhat of a distance that you do keep and somewhat of a more formal relationship with people which is a part of doing your job.”

Dr Reed credits the successes of the district to the teamwork that takes place among everyone who works for the school system as well as the support of the town.

“The success that I think we’ve had in the district is because we talked a lot about us and we don’t spend a lot of time talking about the superintendent or the principal or a teacher. I believe the town is a special place,” he said. “I know this school system is thought of by our peers in the state, other administrators and teachers, as a special place for how we do business. The dedication of the staff, the culture we have here, that understands what continuous improvement means and does it. We do believe problems are our friends as long as they exist to be solved. I do think that is special.”

A Long Work Week

On average, Dr Reed worked a 60- to 65-hour week. He says there are no regrets, but he thanked his family for their support and sacrifice in order for him to do the work he felt necessary for the district.

The opportunity to invest himself so fully in his work and the local school system “was a gift from my wife and two children,” Dr Reed said. “There are times when you get so focused on what you do at work I think that there were times that I probably should have been at home or there were vacations I should have taken that I didn’t take when my kids were younger.”

Professionally Dr Reed feels he has been fulfilled working in education. He does not feel he would do anything different if he had it to do over again.

“You can always second guess yourself about what you’ve done or haven’t done. The reality is you make the decisions that you make based upon the best information you have at the time. In that context I would have to say I’m a very fortunate person. I feel comfortable,” Dr Reed said. “I think one of the most fortunate things is to be 60 years of age and look at your professional life as far as the big decisions you’ve made of where you are going to work or how you are going to do your job; I don’t think I would change it.

“It was very important to me that I leave at a time that people might be a little surprised, rather than at a time when people were saying, ‘Oh my goodness, I thought he’d never leave,’” he added. “You want to go out when you feel you are performing in a fashion where you are at the top of your game.”

Dr Reed is an advocate for public education. His belief in it and what it can do for children is a clear message he had conveyed over the last 20 years. The future concerns him as he points out that education goes in cycles and he worries the next cycle is the cost of education. The students of today will help to take care of generations past.

 “I just hope people keep in mind that in the school system, we have a very significant obligation to children, which I think people understand but I worry a little bit when I hear all the people say, ‘I don’t have children in school.’ There never was a time that anybody’s taxes, unless they have an extraordinarily large home, paid for their children’s education. Every generation frankly has been subsidized by other generations.

“When I see it reduced to a very rudimentary thing, to where I want to spend my money… I look at it as a moral obligation,” he added. “Public education is the great equalizer in our society. It takes people from different backgrounds and it says to them, ‘You go in work and here is an opportunity for you to come harvest some of your potential and then translate it in your life to the resources you are going to give back to your family.’ I’m just pleased and proud that Newtown celebrates its school system. ”

Dr Reed has watched Newtown over the last 20 years. He has seen townspeople support and help each other in every avenue. “I think this school system is something that the town has helped make it something all Newtowners can be proud of and take satisfaction from.”

Dr Reed hopes to have the self-discipline and direction to write a book as well as do some consulting work over the next year before making an formal commitment to his next career. His future may not be mapped out, but his vision and standards will affect the Newtown school system for years to come.