Comfort moves to new role in schools

Tim Comfort, famous fisherman, turned 50 this year. What he liked about it is that the staff at Sisters Elementary School didn’t engage in a lot of dark humor about his being over the hill. Instead, all of their cards and drawings and jokes were about fish.

Comfort says he’s not really a famous fisherman — “more infamous, maybe. I fish a lot but I don’t catch many. But I tell a lot of good fish stories.”

The wiry, energetic educator with a white mustache has only a few days left in a job he obviously enjoys, principal of the elementary school. He’s held that position for 10 years. But on August 3 he will move to the school district’s central office to become “the personnel and special programs director.” Or maybe the director of “human resources and special programs.” He says they haven’t really settled on a title yet, and “I’m still working on the vocabulary.”

In any case, it’s clear that Comfort will be doing part of the human resources (personnel) job that Jan Martin has been doing, and part of the job of directing special education and related programs that Jim Golden has been doing. Martin has been the superintendent’s administrative assistant while Golden has been the assistant principal of Sisters High School. Both are moving to new positions with Crook County schools in Prineville.

Comfort said in an interview last week that, although he will miss the elementary school, he’s happy about the change. One reason is that it will give him more administrative experience that may lead to a superintendency. He has had that in mind for some time and put his name in when Steve Swisher retired as Sisters superintendent in 2003. Comfort was among the candidates the board interviewed but did not make the final cut.

“I’ve got some great experience (related to the new job),” he said, “and it will mean an opportunity to have some change and see the district on a different level. And the district appears to have a need right now for some continuity, for some history, for some perspective because we’re going through a heck of a lot of change at the board level and the administrative level. So maybe this is the right time and the right place for me to do this.”

He quickly acknowledged that there is another side to it: “There is no doubt that while one foot is taking a step that way I still have a big foot and a big heart left with the elementary. I have loved working here.”

He talks that way sometimes.

“I’m not so sure the personnel/special programs office will ever be as much fun (as the elementary school), but the good news is they’re moving right there,” as he pointed toward the old administration building, which is being remodeled to become the new school administration building. It’s just across Locust Street from the school.

“So I still might be able to come over for a kindergarten student fix or a grilled cheese and tomato soup school lunch with the kids and the staff. Don’t be surprised if I do that periodically.”

To abuse his own metaphor, Comfort’s personal history has a foot in both coasts. Born in Boston, he was raised in northern California. He earned a bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology from Chicago State University and a master’s in school psychology from the University of Michigan.

His first job was in Jackson, Wyoming, where he spent eight years as a school psychologist and then moved to the Deschutes (now High Desert) Education Service District as coordinator of psychological services for seven years. He then spent four years as assistant principal of Obsidian Middle School in Redmond before taking the principal’s job in Sisters.

He has done a lot of work with special ed students and handled most of that load at the elementary school while Jim Golden was the overall director of special education for the district. He has also worked with the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program.

Comfort’s wife, Janice, also works for Sisters schools. She is the nutrition services director and a culinary arts teacher. She and Tim have three grown children, all college graduates and all graduates of Sisters High School.

Comfort’s multifaceted new job will make him one of the primary administrators involved in collective bargaining with the teachers’ and the classified employees’ unions. Both are involved in negotiations for new contracts now.

Comfort has been on the administration’s negotiating team for several years “and I was thinking I would be rotating off,” he mused. “But now I’ll be more or less one of the continuing players.” He says he knows many of the people and has good working relationships with both unions.