A Message from the Superintendent

Given recent news articles around our District’s budget and the dire State budget projections, we have decided to send out two newsletters about our budget situation. The first article will focus on the status of our current budget. The second article will focus on how the Governor’s budget proposal will affect our District.

Read more HERE.

Get to Know Your District: Meet Principal Gary McAdam

Gary McAdam is Principal of Concord High School in Mt. Diablo Unified School District. He kindly took the time to tell us about himself and his work.

Briefly describe to us your job and responsibilities as a Principal of Concord High School: My core responsibility is to provide leadership for Concord High, ensuring that teachers, coaches, and staff have the necessary equipment, training, and shared approach to serve our students. My day to day responsibilities include: organizing extra-curricular programs, ensuring the maintenance of a safe environment for teaching and learning, ensuring that our educational offerings and measurements of success are consistent with district and state standards, and supervising and evaluating the work of teachers, staff, and coaches.

What inspired you to enter into this profession? I was inspired to enter this profession because of my belief that strong leadership and teamwork can create an environment safe for and conducive to learning. Every student deserves this and it is what I work to provide.

What is your professional goal? My goal this year is to implement, with Concord High’s teachers, coaches, and staff, the concept of Professional Learning Communities. With this approach, teachers work together to develop innovative and shared methods of assessment to see if our students are learning what they need to. Through this collaboration, the high school community learns more about various ways to present information to ensure that all of our students have the opportunity to learn in a format that makes sense for them and to be engaged in classrooms every day.

What do you like best about your job? The best part of my job is the teamwork among administration, teachers, coaches, staff, and students that can make learning and the high school experience so fun and defining.

If you could change anything about your job/services you provide, what would it be? I wish that as a high school principal I had the power to ensure that our school and schools throughout California are properly funded by the state. Unfortunately, because this is not the case, my goal is to use the resources we have to maximize opportunities for our students at Concord High.

Meet our Superintendent

This week, Michell Redfood spoke to our MDUSD Superintendent, Dr. Dick Nicoll, as part of our continuing Get to Know your District series.

1. Describe your job and responsibilities as superintendent.
The Superintendent is responsible for everything that happens in the school district: instruction, business, personnel, special programs, etc. In Mt. Diablo , we are fortunate to have capable staff in these areas of responsibility, so the Superintendent handles major problems that are not resolved by others. The Superintendent is responsible for the agenda and conduct of school board meetings. The Superintendent also supports the Board of Education on a daily basis.

2. What inspired you to follow this career path?
I was a psychology major as an undergraduate. My interest in a practical application lead me to pursuing a career as a school psychologist. I have subsequently worked in the Special Education program in Mt. Diablo for seven years including serving as the Principal of a Special Education school in the district.

3. What is your professional goal?
My current goal is to lead the Mt. Diablo Unified School District in its efforts to achieve educational excellence, pass a parcel tax, balance the budget, and in general provide excellent instruction for all of its students. My personal goal is retirement when a new Superintendent is hired.

4. What do you like best about your job?
I really enjoy school visits when I can meet with staff individually and see in person the hard work that they do and student learning.

5. If you could change anything about your job/services you provide, what would it be?
I wish I had more time. There is so much I would like to do with school visits, writing newsletters for parents, replying to parent inquiries, meeting with community members, and building support for public education. One of the most important decisions I make every day is how to allocate my time.