Superintendent wants seamless transition

Anderson brings wealth of experience, rural values to Austin schools

By Katie Johnson (Contact) | Austin Daily Herald

Published Saturday, July 5, 2008

Bruce Anderson is a man who loves metaphors, interspersing them often in conversation.

“In some respects, my job is to set the table for the district,” he said when describing his role as interim superintendent at Austin Public Schools.

Education jargon, he said, “doesn’t speak well to people.”

Anderson has one week under his belt in the district, where he will serve as administrator for one year.

Thus far, Anderson believes his experience has been “encouraging, informative and enjoyable.

“I’m an optimist,” he said, explaining how he wants to work toward “that process of collegiality.”

Anderson has met with all members of the school board — his “bosses,” as he refers to them — and said that has been “very healthy and open, just what I hoped it would be.”

A self-proclaimed “farm boy” from Illinois, Anderson and his wife, Carol, live in Richfield, Minn., where he will commute to on weekends during his time in Austin. The couple has four children and four grandchildren, and now love to call Minnesota their “home.”

“My wife is my best friend,” he said. “We like to walk and talk and share. We have a little sheltie dog.

“My background is rural and I am proud of it,” Anderson said, explaining he believes the values he possesses “were instilled as a rural person.”

Though Anderson is retired from full-time education, he serves as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas, where he coaches educators pursuing administrator licensure.

Anderson’s experience includes a superintendency at a district in Richfield, Minn. that faced substantial decline in enrollment.

“It was a wonderful time, but a painful time,” he said.

He then became administrator of a district in Houston, Texas, a “fast-growing district with a young staff,” he said. “It was fun to manage growth.”

Anderson served as superintendent in a seven-community district in the Twin Cities area and also in Moorhead, Minn., what he calls “one of the most outstanding out-state districts.”

Anderson believed in his career it was important for him to stay eight to 10 years in a district to “stay vital and growing.”

He also holds experience as an interim superintendent in Little Falls, Minn., a district comparable in size to Austin.

During his year in Austin, Anderson wants to continue the “great things going on in the district,” praising the fiscal management he has seen here when other districts are “dealing with the albatross of fiscal cuts.

“I hope the citizens in the community — and I think they are — aware of the great things going on in the district,” he said.

Anderson hopes to provide a “seamless transition” for the next superintendent.

“He or she can come in with a clean slate, so to speak,” he said.

Anderson replaces Candace Raskin, whose last day with Austin Public Schools was June 30.

A permanent replacement is scheduled to begin July 1, 2009, with a contract negotiated in January. The district will begin developing a superintendent profile in September, seeking input from staff and the community.