Swisher looks back on his time as school chief

He didn't talk about the new high school, or even the local option levy.

When Steve Swisher, superintendent of Sisters schools for the past seven years, was asked last week about his greatest accomplishment and disappointments during those years, he began this way:

"The piece that I feel positive about was that we put together processes, a way to look toward the future, kind of where we're going, and in particular keeping an eye on the academic achievement issues. And over time, I think we improved those processes through curriculum and instruction committees, looking at how technology becomes more integrated into the classroom and in particular paying a lot of attention to our assessments. So, that part, I think we continued to improve and did well."

Swisher talks like that. His thoughts may be abstract but his manner is more farmer-neighbor than educator. Which may stem from his roots in the potato-growing soil of Klamath County.

The second thing he mentioned was:

"Seven years ago we didn't have a middle school. It was a seventh through 12th grade alignment, and K through six. And I think our students in the middle were being left out a bit. So the ability to get a real middle school was real important for the continuum there."

Sisters added a high school in 1991. So when Swisher came in 1996 "it was kind of a district of two schools as opposed to a school district with schools. There was a bit of a disjuncture in terms of consistency and really making a K-12 school district out of it. So we did quite a bit of infrastructure work on that."

He added a third item to his list of positives: "I think it would be very difficult to find anyplace around the state where a community gives as much as the Sisters community does to the schools. Just being able to work in a community like that was a highlight; it was exciting."

Swisher was reluctant to dwell on the negative parts of his tenure. He cited two, briefly: financial problems that afflict all Oregon school districts and the occurrence of child abuse involving students, the most notorious case being that of Stephen Gage, who operated a Sisters-area school for troubled teenage girls. A number of his wards attended Sisters High School. He was sent to prison for abusing them.

The worst thing that happened to Swisher personally during his time here was a traffic accident in 2001 that left him near death. He was on his way to visit his mother in Klamath Falls, who was recovering from a back operation, when just east of town he drifted off the pavement, overcorrected and swerved in front of an oncoming hay truck. His recovery took months.

But looking back, he remembers two happy outcomes.

The first is that he did recover, and was able to resume his full duties.

"As I was walking down through a bunch of rocks on the beach today I commented to my wife, 'Who would have thought two-and-a-half years ago that I'd be able to maneuver these kinds of rocks?'"

He was on the beach because he has taken a job as interim superintendent of the Brookings-Harbor School District on the southern Oregon coast. He assumed that post officially July 1. His telephone interview with The Nugget took place the evening of July 4.

The second pleasant outcome was "the tremendous outpouring of support" he received from school district residents during recovery.

"There was a lot of genuine love and care and concern and that certainly helped me through a very difficult time," he said.

The Sisters superintendency was the second of Swisher's career. From 1990 to 1994, he was superintendent of South Lane School District in Cottage Grove, just south of Eugene. During his first 20 years as an educator, Swisher was a math teacher and mid-level administrator in school districts ranging from Beaverton to Eagle Point.

Swisher grew up on "the kind of family farm that doesn't exist any more" in Klamath County.

"We grew potatoes, alfalfa and barley and had some cattle up on the Klamath marsh. I don't think we had much money but we were able to eat well from what we grew, the clothes were washed and all of that stuff and there were a lot of family farmers like us so none of us really recognized that we were poor."

He and his older brother attended Henley High School, where Steve graduated as salutatorian in 1968. His future wife, Novella, lived about a mile away but "she went to Klamath Union (High School). She was one of those big city girls." They met while attending "a summer thing for culturally deprived kids" at what was then Southern Oregon College in Ashland in 1967. They were married after Steve finished his freshman year at SOC.

Novella, a year behind him in school, was interested in art. "But it would be cheaper if we were both math majors and could share the same books so she changed her major to math. She did do a business minor." She stayed on "the business side" of things, working for insurance companies while Steve pursued his career at a math teacher.

The most unusual item on his resume covers two years he spent as state Director of Apprenticeship, during 1995 and '96. The short version of the story behind that job is that Republican Jack Roberts, a Lane County Commissioner who shocked the state's political establishment by winning election as Labor Commissioner in 1994, called Swisher and asked him to take the job because of what he'd heard about South Lane's accomplishments in school-to-work and related efforts.

Looking back, though, Swisher is sanguine about his time in Sisters.

"I'm really happy that the board seven years ago chose to hire me and it's been a great experience working in the schools there.

"I believe I've added some things that have made the system better, but from the other perspective it's been a real privilege to work there."