Hanover
As superintendent in Erie, Pa., Jay Badams made a name for himself battling for money to run the chronically underfunded district of about 11,500 students. His efforts involved scraps with the state Legislature and, this fall, a proposal to close his own district’s high schools and send those students to wealthier schools in the suburbs.
Twenty-five years ago, Badams lived in Saxtons River, Vt., where he worked as an account manager in Eastman Kodak Co.’s health sciences division, serving such major clients as Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Now, as he prepares to come back, the former area resident said his move to the Dresden School District will allow him to focus on what got him into education in the first place: finding new and more effective ways to educate children.
“I do see an opportunity here to be much more involved in advancing education than try to find ways to survive financially and try to bring equity to a struggling system,” he said in a telephone interview last week.
School officials in Hanover and Norwich last year launched a nationwide search to replace outgoing Superintendent Frank Bass, who this summer announced his plans to retire. After three finalists came to the district earlier this month for all-day meet-and-greets, Badams was the “overwhelming” first choice, Search Committee Chairman Justin Campfield said.
Speaking by phone last week, Campfield quoted from nearly a dozen evaluations filled out by parents, teachers and administrators following Badams’ visit, many of which featured some variation of the comment “please hire him.”
“The responses we got from those evaluations was really overwhelming … it really basically sealed the deal,” Campfield said.
The search committee chairman added that he believed Badams would find inspiration in Hanover and Norwich.
“Once we got to know him … we realized that no one has seen the best work from Jay Badams yet because he hasn’t yet worked with all the tools in the toolbox,” Campfield said. “And it’s going to be amazing to see what he’s able to do when he has all those tools available.”
Badams, 51, spent the late 1980s serving as a medical non-commissioned officer with the U.S. Army, and earned an English degree from Allegheny College in 1990.
He received his master’s of education from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2000 and a doctorate in the same subject from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012.
In the meantime, he worked as a teacher and administrator in the Erie School District. He stayed there for almost two decades, with the exception of a two-year stint, from 2007 to 2009, as superintendent in nearby Wattsburg, Pa.
In 2010, Badams took over as superintendent in Erie and immediately faced down a $26 million shortfall in the district’s $180 million budget.
During his tenure, The Erie Times-News reported, Badams was a “vocal advocate for reforming school funding across Pennsylvania,” pressuring lawmakers and leading protests in Harrisburg, the state capital, to support struggling districts such as Erie’s.
“It is really tough to fight to try to get people who control the situation to understand how unfair it is. It is so glaring,” he told the newspaper.
In an editorial, the newspaper praised Badams for his “singular leadership,” but hinted that his district’s financial troubles — and the effort involved in addressing them — had taken their toll.
“Badams has been an inspiring, indefatigable, passionate champion of Erie and its schools. But the strain shows,” the newspaper wrote.
In Erie, Badams’ salary, which he said he voluntarily froze for his latest five-year contract in 2013, was about $185,000 for this school year.
SAU 70 Board Chairman Carey Callaghan on Tuesday night said the board had agreed on a five-year contract for Badams with a $165,000 salary for the 2017-18 year. Bass is making about $153,000 for the current school year.
Leaving the district had been a difficult choice, Badams said. According to The Erie Times-News, the school system is preparing to weather another multimillion-dollar deficit next year. What gives the departing superintendent confidence in his district, he said, is the handpicked staff he leaves behind.
Campfield, the search committee chairman, said Dresden school leaders had looked to Badams’ hiring choices in Erie as a sign of his strengths as an administrator.
“There was also a sense that the school district was going to be in good hands because of the team he built up — which is the sign of being a great leader,” Campfield said.
Taking up the reins of the Dresden School District will not necessarily mean abandoning reforms to educational inequality; in fact, Badams said, the experience of working in a well-funded school system might strengthen his resolve.
“Once I see what that’s like, my appreciation for the inequity that exists around the country will get much more sharp,” he said.
The contrasting experiences could inspire him to write about disparity in school funding in the future, he said.
Badams last week said it was “way too soon” to know what advances he might bring to Dresden in terms of curriculum, assessment and teaching with technology — all areas of core interest that he said he hoped to return to here.
“It’s a high-performing system with teachers who are dedicated to their work,” he said of the district, adding that it was his sense that “there weren’t any glaring problems to be solved.”
Badams is scheduled to take over for Bass at the end of June, and the outgoing superintendent last week said he had already had the first of many transitional conversations with his successor.
Bass lavished praise on Badams, saying he had “tremendous people skills” and yet was a disarming leader, “non-directorial in his approach,” who spoke quietly and passionately and preferred to collaborate with people rather than dictate to them.
“You always want to leave the school system that you’re departing on great terms, and still know that you’re still going to leave it even stronger than as you left,” Bass said.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.