Join our free month-to-month publication Past Excessive Faculty to get the newest information about larger schooling in Colorado.
Joe Garcia’s favourite moments throughout his 25 years as the next schooling chief in Colorado have been the commencement ceremonies.
“I keep in mind one time at Pikes Peak (Neighborhood School) watching a pupil come throughout who was getting her nursing diploma similtaneously her father,” he stated. “It’s simply inspirational. It’s enjoyable.”
Garcia, who’s the Colorado Neighborhood School System chancellor, introduced final week that he’ll retire June 30. Throughout his profession, he has led Pikes Peak Neighborhood School, Colorado State College of Pueblo, the Colorado Division of Larger Training, and the neighborhood school system, the biggest school system within the state.
Garcia, 67, additionally served as lieutenant governor underneath former Gov. John Hickenlooper and has change into probably the most influential leaders in Colorado larger schooling and politics. At one level, he turned down a place in former President Barack Obama’s administration.
However main the neighborhood school system has been the job by which he’s felt simplest.
“You realize, I thought-about at totally different occasions and on the urging of various individuals, operating for Congress, operating for governor, making use of for different larger ed positions,” Garcia stated, “however that is the place my skillset and character actually match.”
The State Board of Neighborhood Schools and Occupational Training plans to nominate Government Vice Chancellor and Chief Technique Officer Diane Duffy as interim chancellor efficient July 1. The board will conduct a nationwide seek for Garcia’s alternative.
Garcia stated he hopes his retirement will assist usher in a brand new era of upper schooling leaders who can deal with the urgent challenges that college students face, together with getting them to and thru school and serving to them purchase abilities that join them to jobs.
And he stated he’s grateful for what his personal larger schooling has given him. Earlier than his academic profession, he stated he labored as a rubbish man after which as a janitor in school.
“Larger schooling enabled me to have a life I couldn’t have imagined as a teen. And that’s what larger schooling must do. It must excite individuals to pursue lives that will probably be rewarding, pursue jobs that will probably be difficult,” he stated. “It wants to assist individuals problem themselves and achieve issues they didn’t assume they had been able to engaging in.”
Right here’s what Garcia needed to say about why he’s retiring, his accomplishments throughout his tenure, and the challenges and way forward for the faculty system.
His retirement choice
Garcia will flip 68 subsequent month, and stated it’s time.
“I’m not getting any youthful, and I’m not getting any more healthy,” he stated. “And I don’t wish to be seen as a few of our latest political leaders who’ve been seen as hanging on for too lengthy and never acting at their finest and never giving alternatives to those that would carry extra vigor and vitality and creativity.”
Garcia stated he plans to take a number of cross-country motorbike journeys, and do extra touring, biking, and snowboarding. He’s centered on the bodily energetic features of his life, he stated.
“And if I discover I can’t actually do it, then I’ll possibly train a category or two,” he stated.
His best accomplishments as chancellor
He’s proudest of two of his achievements.
He helped create a extra collaborative system that works for all college students, together with a 2022 initiative that lets Colorado’s seven rural neighborhood schools share applications and providers so college students — irrespective of the place they reside — get a wider set of academic alternatives.
“Prior to now, individuals actually carefully guarded what we known as their service areas, and they didn’t need any school coming in and providing a course to somebody who lived in an space that was served by one other school,” he stated. “However what that did was actually restricted college students in rural communities, as a result of rural colleges couldn’t supply the wide selection of applications that enormous city colleges may.”
Second, he helped make it simpler for college kids to switch from the neighborhood school system to a four-year school by aligning educational necessities and classwork.
“There are much more ensures about (credit score) transferability and a higher transparency round which programs will switch to which establishments,” he stated. “After which we’ve got extra partnerships with universities.”
The largest challenges he sees going through the faculty system
State funding and federal adjustments have made serving college students tough, he stated.
College students who don’t go to varsity due to the price put their futures in jeopardy, he stated.
“It’s no secret that Colorado doesn’t make investments some huge cash in larger schooling in comparison with different states. In consequence, tuition charges at each neighborhood schools and our universities are larger than they’re on common in most different states,” Garcia stated. “That’s not good for college kids. It’s not good for our state economic system.”
He additionally stated latest adjustments by the federal authorities to federal grants, similar to axing applications that assist low-income college students and Hispanic college students, additionally may make it tougher for the state to get college students from differing backgrounds to varsity. Lots of the administration’s directives are being challenged in courtroom, nevertheless it creates uncertainty for school leaders of their purpose to assist all college students navigate particular person hurdles.
He stated the youthful era of employees will probably be extra numerous than earlier generations due to the state’s demographics, and that the faculty system has responded to fulfill the wants of its communities. Extra jobs than ever require an schooling past a highschool diploma, he stated.
“Our future workforce goes to be extra numerous, nevertheless it additionally must be higher educated than our earlier workforce,” he stated. “An enormous share of the scholars popping out of our excessive colleges are individuals of shade. If we wish them to fill these jobs, we’ve obtained to verify they’re effectively ready, and which means we’ve got to create a system that serves them successfully.”
Jason Gonzales is a reporter masking larger schooling and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado companions with Open Campus on larger schooling protection. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.