The Ticker sat down this week with Paul Soma, Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) superintendent, who has had an eventful year, from two investigations into his conduct to the reconstruction of an elementary school to the voters approving a bond proposal. 

Ticker: First of all, what’s on your plate today? Give us a glimpse into your schedule this week.
Soma: Sure. This morning I met with the executive team; we have daily huddles and review each other’s projects and calendars. One thing on my mind right now is filling open positions – both teaching and administrative – and making sure we have staffing set for the year. There’s always natural turnover and movement, and this is the time of year that comes into play. Yesterday I welcomed the transportation folks back. They’re having two training days. Of course the drivers learn how to drive, follow laws, safety…but also how important the interaction is between driver and student. And that part of our training is actually serving as a model for the Michigan Association for Pupil Transportation.

Also yesterday, I met with the new ISD (Intermediate School District) superintendent, Nicholas Ceglarek. We are off to a real positive relationship. I met with the technology department this week, and was updated on the security enhancements of our entire network, and I learned a lot about security and how we’re addressing it, and it’s pretty darn neat to see. People with hostile intent can do damage to systems like ours if we didn't have proper protection in place. I also heard about how we’re saving money by doing 424 warranty repairs in-house, and how we just purchased 4,200 new Chromebooks so our students from high school down into the elementary grades will have laptops. I do lots of school visits, but fewer in the summer. This is a time of planning and preparation. It’s a very complex job that involves being nimble, thinking all the time, and being able to interact with people at various levels.
 
Ticker: Recently there were two investigations about your conduct and treatment of administrators. You were cleared, but the report said you had “a tendency to engage in combative verbal interactions with subordinates and staff.” What is the latest with your relationship with administrators, particularly those who made those charges?
Soma: We have some really positive movement forward. You know, going through something like that can be tough, and it was tough personally…but at the same time it provides opportunity for growth. At its core, it provided an opportunity for me to have deep reflection and address some concerns that had built up. I think we’re on a very positive road there. We’re engaging in extremely constructive and forward-thinking dialogue, both in direct conversations with me and Joe Esper [president of the administrators association] and in conversations with both executive teams and in full group dialogue. I felt honored to be a part of a group that was having real conversations about our relationships and goals...you know, I talked about the complexity of this job, and in many ways the job of a principal is very much the same: You have to be nimble and respond to all types of environmental variables and situations. So it’s incumbent upon me to make sure my communications are clear, and it’s really important for me to understand at a deep level the challenges our principals face on a daily basis. I’ve made a commitment that I want to spend some time literally sitting in their seats this year.
 
Ticker: What did you learn from this entire process?
Soma: I learned a lot about self-reflection. Sometimes we only see ourselves in one way and not the way others perceive you. So I’ve done a lot of self-reflection about that. About how I can be perceived. Also that communication is vitally important; our systems have to be open and accessible both ways. In this job, these things play out very publicly, which adds another level of complexity, but this has also taught me about how to make sure you’re respecting everyone’s opinions.
 
Ticker: Does the job still fire you up? Superintendents tend to get burned out…
Soma: OK, I love this job. Yes, you can get burned out when you are only dealing with adult issues, but when the focus turns to students, which is where it should be – and I know at the teaching and support level, it’s on the students all the time -- but sometimes that’s not where the narrative is. When you turn to completing the large project like Eastern Elementary on time, under budget and kids being welcomed there, that’s exciting. This week, two students asked me for reference letters for various things. That makes me feel so good. Or seeing one of our students playing guitar and singing at Friday Night Live. That fires me up.
 
Ticker: The TCAPS bond proposal passed. Anything surprise you about that? What changed from the failed bonds of 2012/’13?
Soma: Over the course of my superintendency, we did a lot of reflection on 2012/’13. We spoke to a lot of community leaders…another cool part of this job is I get access to some very smart people. Clearly our community was asking for us to be more cognizant of our general operating budget, to make sure we were treating our employees and teachers with the respect they deserve -- and we completed a multi-year contract, and wanted to make sure we were getting a return on investment in terms of impact on students. And we were able to structure a bond with no millage increase, and then the incredible work of the “vote yes” group. That group got the word out and our community showed its support by more than two-to-one. Made us feel really, really good.
 
Ticker: You’ve talked about the problems you’ve had with state regulations relating to child care…
Soma: Yes. We embrace and support and understand the need for regulation and oversight, but what would be a great improvement to public education is a transition from the primary focus on regulation and oversight to ensuring proper controls and procedures, and then providing assistance to meet those regulations. That’s lacking at a lot of levels.
 
Ticker: But specifically, what do you mean? What’s the problem?
Soma: We’re having issues getting our early childhood programs licensed at specific schools. The problem is categorizing all citations with the same brush. There are no levels or degrees. A door handle being located at the improper height is not the same violation as – and this is not something we do – but misrecording attendance. But if you had, say, 22 citations, that sounds bad, but someone on the street would read them and say, ’22 actually looks like two real issues.’ They all have context. But I think we’re on the cusp of getting there on this issue.
 
Ticker: How is TCAPS doing? Academically, financially. What’s your report card say?
Soma: One thing I always say is we are a comprehensive, high-quality, low-funded, low-tax district. We are comprehensive in terms of what we offer, mirroring almost what you’d find at the highest-funded district. We are acknowledged for how many students take and succeed in AP courses. Our performance on the NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Association) test is on the up-trend and we’ve separated ourselves from comparable districts. We are rated very highly for our SAT scores and how many students can participate in extracurricular activities. We’ve been recognized by US News and the Washington Post.
 
Remember, we are the 18th or 19th largest district in the state out of 850 (including charter schools) based on student population, and no other district our size has our funding; we are the lowest on that list. I give the example of Troy…Troy has 27 square miles to serve; we have 300, and they have tens of millions of dollars more than us. You can take a fifth grade student in TC that gets $7,600 from the state and the same student in another district gets $8,000 or $10,000. Why? Only because they live in a different district. I’ve said and will continue to say that’s discriminatory.

Still, financially we are improving. 2015 was the last time we broke even; before that it was 2007. This year we’ll have a balanced budget, and next year too. State funding has been a challenge, and we’ve also had to make some tough decisions with cuts, like the reduction in overhead from the closing of schools or cuts in some programming that was operating at a structural loss. Of course, not everything we do adds to the bottom line, and these are tough decisions. We would have preferred not to have to make them, but the board put a visible process in place, and we made them. We’ve also had to get creative in our programming with things like our international program or offering child care as a benefit to parents at a reasonable cost but trying to make a profit, or our home school partnership…areas where we can add revenue.
 
Ticker: What are you most proud of here?
Soma: So many things. I’m proud of the district’s and my relationship with our teachers. That multi-year contract is something people who have been around this system longer than I have can’t remember the last time that happened. Very proud of the bond passing the way it did, symbolizing the community’s support. Proud that our achievement scores were good, but are trending higher. There’s a lot of individual things, but maybe to summarize it, I’m proud we have set the stage for explosive growth relative to achievement of students. We have a balanced budget, we passed the bond, we have contracts and unity…all the targets we put in place years ago. We set in place three-and-a-half years ago a strategic plan, one that had a concise summary of current state, future state, and a way to see if you’ve made it. We’ve made it. Our board president recently told me it’s time to work on a new multi-year plan…not because we’re sick of it or because of a change in leadership, but because we did it. We accomplished it.

This interview was edited for length.