Jon Sills Talks Ups and Downs of Being Superintendent

Sitting in his new office, three weeks after students have come back to fill the halls of Bedford Public Schools for another year of classes, Jon Sills, Bedford's new superintendent, said he misses a lot about being principal of Bedford High School, except for chaperoning school dances. 

"While I love to dance personally, I think I've been to around 60 dances over the past 12 years," Sills said. "I won't miss the stress that comes with preventing inappropriate dancing."

Sills, who was principal of BHS for 12 years, said he is excited about his new position as superintendent, and excited about tackling the challenges that come with the job.

"One thing I've had to adjust to is getting to know the entire faculty and staff and getting to know the needs of all of the different buildings in our district," Sills said. "My background is in secondary education so this has been a learning process."

Sills said he enjoys this learning process, which includes conducting interviews with students, parents and teachers at all four of Bedford's schools.

"I hope this process helps me understand the strengths of our school system in schools I haven't worked in," Sills said.

The strengths of the Bedford Public School system are many, Sills said, but they all come back to the faculty and staff.

"I think we have an exceptionally talented faculty across the entire district," Sills said. "There is no question everyone comes to work with the best interest of the students first in their mind."

The dedication of the faculty and staff of Bedford schools is evident in the results of the 2012 MCAS exams, in which 100 percent of Bedford High School sophomores scored a proficient or higher on the English Language Arts portion of the exam, Sills said.

Sills said the core values of the Bedford community also contribute to the strength of the Bedford Public School system.

"Equity, recognizing the value of every child and recognizing the value of an authentic education which is meaningful in its own right and prepares kids for post secondary education, these are all values this wonderful community and town recognize as important," Sills said.

The faculty of Bedford schools is successful at "developing kids as thinkers at their core," because strategies that are met with success are shared between teachers and schools.

"We are a largely collaborative faculty and the kids benefit from our faculty sharing their successes," Sills said.

There are some challenge areas where Sills hopes to improve Bedford schools, including creating greater coherence  from grade to grade as well as keeping classroom size down.

This means ensuring that the skills learned in one grade are not lost by the time the student enters the next grade, Sills said, and also that the curriculum students have in one grade compliments the curriculum in the same subject in the next grade. 

"We could become more coherent with our curriculum from Kindergarten to High School," Sills said. "Our goal is creating coherence around a vision of intellectual work being the core of what kids do every day."

While there is already coherence in some areas of the Bedford Public School system, Sills said it is his mission to ensure this coherence becomes district-wide.

"We have some work to do to get to the point where we make that vision a reality in every room in every grade," Sills said.

In the immediate future, Sills said he will be focusing on implementing the new, state-wide, teacher evaluation system as well as overseeing several personnel changes within the district. 

"I will be looking at the way we are implementing the new educator evaluation system and making sure we are able to use it in a way that doesn't add to the work of our educators," Sills said. "I will also be focusing on the process of building our new leadership team."

In addition to working with new principals at Bedford High School and John Glenn Middle School as well as a new director of special education for the district, Sills will be overseeing the hiring process of a new principal for Lieutenant Eleazer Davis Elementary School.

Sills will head a hiring committee beginning in October to fill the position at Davis Elementary.