Superintendent Baker introduced to Sisters

Lynn Baker. Photo by Jim Cornelius

Lynn Baker, the soon-to-be Sisters school superintendent, is getting a rapid introduction to the schools and the general area.

The 53-year-old educator signed a contract as interim superintendent for 2003-04 at the end of May. A few days later he and his wife visited for a weekend and rented a condominium in Pine Meadow Village.

On Monday and Tuesday of last week he was back in town for an intensive round of meetings with everyone from Steve Swisher, the man he will succeed, to the co-chairs of the Starry Nights music series that brings thousands of dollars into the schools foundation each year.

Squeezing a brief interview with The Nugget into his schedule, Baker acknowledged that "the most immediate thing we have to do is to get our staff and students into that new high school, to transition so that we don't miss a beat with the education process. Arm and arm with that is getting our middle school students into the new middle school (the remodeled existing high school).

"So I guess my first interest is to make sure that we can start school that very first day as if nothing has happened."

The Bakers will move to town on June 20.

He will then have 10 days before he officially starts to work on July 1.

They have already signed papers closing the sale on the house they have owned in Cashmere, Washington, where Baker has been superintendent for the past four years.

The new man reiterated his desire to view his new job as more than an interim assignment: "I'm finding that I can't come into this position just thinking that it's going to be one year. I find that I really need to start thinking long-term, so that things can keep progressing. Because I don't want to be just a caretaker."

He made his interest in the permanent position clear to the Sisters School Board before he was appointed.

He admitted that he doesn't know much about one of the tasks he will face: selecting a new high school principal.

Assistant Principal Bob Macauley has been given the job for one year on an interim basis, paralleling Baker's own terms of employment. And like Baker, Macauley has expressed a strong interest in having the appointment on a permanent basis.

Baker agreed that regardless of whether he is here for one year or more, he will need to devote attention to building a campaign for renewal of the four-year local option levy that adds some $700,000 in tax money to the Sisters budget annually. The school board is virtually certain to put the option up for renewal in the general election of 2004, in hopes that it can continue without interruption.

Baker said Washington districts depend on a similar levy that can be extended for up to four years at a time. That levy "accounted for about 12 percent of our budget each year" in Cashmere, similar to the importance of the local option levy to the Sisters overall budget.

When asked if there was anything he would like to say to local school patrons directly, Baker had a ready answer:

"I would like people to know that I've got an open-door policy, that people are welcome to come in and speak with the superintendent of schools about just about anything.

"Certainly at first I may not have the answers but I will quickly learn to find those answers and will be glad to get back to them and listen to their ideas and hopes for their own children, or even if they don't have children in the district.

"I just want to learn a lot and make connections with a lot of people."