Sisters has a new schools chief

Last updated Apr 17, 2007 12:0pm0

Tia Duerrmeyer count

Elaine Drakulich will take on her new post in July.

Sisters School District has a new CEO. She is Dr. Elaine Drakulich, the current Assistant Superintendent of the North Clackamas School District, 12 miles southeast of Portland.

Drakulich will assume her new post as superintendent on July 1.

Sisters School Board members convened in a special public session on Monday night, April 16, and voted unanimously to approve Drakulich's contract.

In a press release that was circulated immediately after the meeting Drakulich states: "I want the Sisters School District to provide the finest education in the State of Oregon and I want Sisters to be recognized as a place where children and their education come first."

In the same press release school board chairman Mike Gould said: "I am proud of the comprehensive process we deployed to find the best person to lead our schools."

Drakulich is not shy about admitting that she has wanted to be the superintendent of Sisters schools for 20 years. She and her husband Nick have owned a home in Sisters for 21 years.

"Our now adult children say their best family memories were made in Sisters," she said.

"Each time I visit, I pick up The Nugget because it is filled with positive articles about achieving students, staff accomplishments and involved community members," Drakulich told The Nugget. "The local merchants display signs/posters about the Outlaws and their successful endeavors. In the '90s I began reading about the Sisters Schools Foundation and their arts events that generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the district to provide more opportunities for students.

"With this long-standing commitment to the education of Sisters' children, could there be a better place to be a superintendent? I think not. Together we will move the education of each child in Sisters from good to great," Drakulich said.

During her day touring Sisters schools on Tuesday, April 10, Drakulich showed herself to be a hands-on type of leader. She bent down to interact on their level with primary grade students. She questioned an older student for wadding up a piece of paper and throwing it on the floor. During the two-hour open forum when she met with parents, district residents and students, she seemed unafraid to offer specifics and provide examples when answering questions.

Drakulich has been a school administrator for 27 years.

"There is little in a school district I haven't done and very few problems I haven't seen including problems similar to the ones facing the district," she said. (See related article, page 23).

She foresees the school board looking to her to solve problems.

"It has been my experience that board members unite around good ideas," she said. "Once the board is comfortable with my management, it can devote its time and energy to doing what boards do best: setting policy that reflects the goals of the Sisters community. That creates trust."

Sisters School Board members relied heavily on public input in screening the 21 candidates who applied to fill the superintendency. A screening committee of approximately 25 administrators, staff, residents and a student provided input every step of the way until the final interview and deliberation process. Some 150 additional individuals submitted comments after the public forum on Tuesday, April 10.

Board chairman Mike Gould takes full responsibility for the decision to exclude the screening committee from the final interview process. Gould told The Nugget that he originally supported allowing screening committee members to sit in on the three finalists' final interviews.

However, Betsy-Miller Jones, the consultant the Sisters School Board hired to assist with the search and school board members and candidates from other districts all advised against including the screening committee due to the sensitive nature of issues that are often discussed at these interviews.

After conducting the final interviews and deliberating on their outcome in executive session, school board members turned to High Desert Educational Services District's attorney John Witty to conduct contract negotiations. Terms were very straightforward. Drakulich's starting salary is $105,000, and her contract term is for three years, a positive sign for a district that has shuffled through three superintendents in four years.

New superintendent brings experience to the job

Sisters School District's new superintendent Dr. Elaine Drakulich has worked in education for the past 35 years, all of that time in the North Clackamas School District (see related article, page 1). She has been an administrator for the past 27 years.

For the last three years Drakulich has served as Assistant Superintendent, supervising human resources, the assessment and technology department and the athletic department.

She has also supervised five charter schools and is responsible for launching the North Clackamas District's first charter school. This experience should prove useful in the potential opening of Sisters' first charter school, the Sisters Charter Academy of Fine Arts, next fall. Drakulich has supervised two alternative schools and directed her district's Crisis Response Team.

She has experience proposing and implementing boundary changes, projecting enrollment, making budget and staffing recommendations and presiding over expulsion hearings.

She chaired the North Clackamas 2006 bond levy planning committee and succeeded in passing a $230 million bond levy. Basically, she has done all jobs required of a superintendent without the actual title of superintendent.

She is an adjunct professor at Portland State University where she teaches an Administrative Licensing Course, a class that explores Teachers Standards and Practices Commission goals required of those attaining their initial Oregon administrative license.

During her educational career she has served as principal of an elementary, a middle and a high school. Her first and only teaching job was an eight-year stint as a seventh and eighth grade home economics teacher. From this position she transitioned directly into an elementary school principalship.

Drakulich received her Doctorate of Education in Education Administration from Portland State University in 1993. Her undergraduate work was done at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

She is a Rotarian and served as president of the Clackamas Rotary Club in 2003-04 and was named Rotarian of the Year in 2002. She is a member of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International.

Drakulich received the Community Partner Award for Educational Administration Instruction from Portland State University in 2003 and was named the Charter Sponsor of the Year by the Charter Schools Development Center in 2006.