Meet Milt
By Linh Tat
Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 7:08 pm in Education, Fremont, Fremont Unified.
There was a story in today’s Argus about the Fremont school board naming Milt Werner, the current assistant superintendent of instructional services, as interim superintendent for the 2008-09 academic year. (The current schools chief, Doug Gephart, is retiring in June.)
Alas, we weren’t able to get a photo of Werner in time to run it in the print edition, so I’m posting it here for anyone who’s dying to know what he looks like.
Additionally, here are a few tidbits about the man who will be leading the county’s second-largest school district:
Werner once taught math and science and later became an assistant principal at James Logan High School in Union City. He’s also taught at St. Joseph’s High in Alameda and was principal at Encinal High in Alameda, at San Leandro High and at Marin Catholic High.
He’s not just Milt Werner - he’s Dr. Milt Werner. The longtime educator received a Master’s in curriculum from Cal State Hayward (now called Cal State East Bay) and earned a doctorate in leadership and organizational culture from USF.
Werner is married to wife Barbara and has four grown children, all of whom attended UC Berkeley. His oldest daughter is doing post-doc work at Stanford. (You think education’s a priority in his family?)
The school board appointed Werner to serve as interim supe because he’s been in the district five years (three years as principal of Washington High and two years as asst. superintendent) and has worked directly with each site principal. Board President Ivy Wu said Werner will be a “stabilizing force” for the district during this time of transition.
With Fremont Unified possibly having to cut millions of dollars next year while still being expected to raise test scores, anyone have advice for the new superintendent?
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February 16th, 2008 at 9:40 am
“The primary goal of any educational institution is to educate students. (The district has) got a very aggressive set of academic goals that I’ll be driving,” said Werner, adding that a long-term district goal is to have every student qualify to attend a four-year public university in California.
This a very disturbing statement from the soon to be Superintendent of Fremont Schools. It is a continuation of the one approach fits all, elitist and everyone goes to college attitude that excludes all those students who would prefer a trade or skill based education. To expend district resources in an attempt to qualify every student for a four-year college career is to deny a significant number of Fremont’s students the education and training that will allow them to experience success in their post high school years.
One only has to examine the statistics to see that we have a difficult time keeping all our students in high school and far too many who begin a college career do not graduate from college. Are our students telling us something? As a nation we will still need skilled carpenters, plumbers, auto mechanics, and various other trades persons. These jobs do not require time in a four year college setting. When will those in charge of our schools’ programs wake up and realize this fact? Time is running out…and so are our resources.