Watkins hits the ground running

by Jim Boyle
Editor
The Elk River Area School District’s interim superintendent almost never applied for the job.
Bruce Watkins hadn’t been looking and wasn’t even aware of the opening until a colleague, a former Sauk Rapids superintendent, mentioned it while the two educators were catching up over coffee. The man told Watkins he was surprised he hadn’t applied for “Elk River.”

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School bells and train whistles must have started going off for Watkins, a St. Cloud man and former St. Cloud Public Schools superintendent and district administrator with Duluth Public Schools who has flirted with retirement but found it tough stay away from the business of education he has been in for 40-plus years. Plus, Elk River is just a 40-minute commute from his home.
After leaving the coffee shop, Watkins emailed Ken Dragseth, who he learned was leading the search, to see if he was too late. The listing for the interim superintendency was closing later that day. Watkins got busy on a cover letter, dug out a resume and letters of recommendation from his last successful job search, along with his licensing and transcript, and fired them off to Dragseth and his consulting firm School Exec Connect, Inc.
He interviewed a day and half later.
“I felt like long shot,” Watkins said.
But partway through his interview, he got a good feeling.
“The questions (the board members) were asking were the ones St. Cloud would want to know,” he said. “They were the ones Duluth would want to know. They were the ones Elk River wanted to know.”

Start in education
Watkins got his start in education in 1972 as a teacher of debate, theater and English at Proctor High School. He went on to become the principal there in 1978, a post he held for 21 years. Some of connections he made were with area administrators through professional development activities, cooperatives and athletics. He was offered an assistant superintendent position in Duluth by Julio Almanza. He became the director of operations from 1999 to 2004. It was perfect. He and his wife’s youngest child was senior in high school and he would soon be an empty nester.
“I kind of enjoyed the steep learning curve of three high schools, four middle school and at that time probably 12 elementary schools,” Watkins said.
Proctor had a mix of affluent lake regions and a farming community hampered by poor soils. The city of Proctor was built around the Duluth Mesabi and Iron Range Railroad, and when things went sour for iron, even with the revival of taconite, the city struggled to stay stable, Watkins said.
“There were different demographics for different regions of the area,” Watkins said.
The same was true for Duluth Public Schools that stretched 15 miles south, 15 miles east and up the North Shore.
“I think that may have been one of the attractors to St. Cloud,” Watkins said. “They were looking for multi-high school representation. There’s lots of similarities working at a place with seven municipalities.”
Watkins was hired in St. Cloud in 2004 and worked there until his first retirement in 2008. He was asked to come back in 2010 after his replacement, Steve Jordahl resigned. Watkins agreed to serve as an interim, but it ended up being a three-year stint.
He started in July of 2010 and had to complete a budget, staff for the school year and open the schools. It donned on him partway through the school year, the board hadn’t initiated a search. Watkins would be asked to stay on twice for another year, and even directed a successful referendum for a K-8 school in St. Joseph.
The St. Cloud School Board conducted a successful search in 2013 and hired Willie Jett, who remains as the leader of District 742 Schools.
Watkins reverted back to Watkins Consulting business. Among his gigs were helping with the hiring of a watershed director for Northfork Crow River Watershed District out of the Brooten Belgrade Paynesville area. He also did a stint as a city administrator for Foley, where he helped find a permanent replacement and dealt with some human resource issues at the management level. Watkins also helped with the search for the new police chief for the city of St. Cloud.
In addition to consulting, Watkins continued to help with teacher negotiations for St. Cloud.
“I had established very reasonable work relationships,” Watkins said. “It had been contentious for the district for the while.”
In 2014 Charlie Kyte, the executive director for the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, told him of a high-performing charter in St. Paul called Nova Classical Academy that needed an executive director. He went there for a yearlong stint followed by six months leading a teacher evaluation project for the St. Paul Conservatory of the Performing Artists.
He finished that in May of this year and decided to live the life of a retiree, spending time with his children and grandchildren, golfing and out at the lake.
“I got to do that May, June and July and the first part of August,” he said. “I had this wonderful summer.”
But he wants to do more.
“I’m blessed with good energy, and I want to work,” Watkins said.
Watkins started on Aug. 8 and his contract extends through June 30, 2017. His salary is $192,000. The Elk River Area School Board plans to find a permanent replacement in 2017 with the help of new board members who will be elected in November.
The Elk River Area School District superintendency is a plum job, he said.
“Previous boards, the current board, previous administrations and the current team certainly have taken steps to position Elk River nicely with the $98 million referendum — supporting it with an operating levy,” Watkins said. “It has been very well done.”
Watkins told School Board members in his interview that he doesn’t see Elk River as a fix-and-repair job.
“I think you’re a ‘maintain and advance.’ I don’t like to stress ‘maintain,’ because I don’t want you to lose a year of continuous improvement and progress. I would want to advance your priorities and initiatives.”
Watkins said growing districts have their own set of problems, one them generally is not basic foundation aid because there’s usually an increasing amount.
“It’s always overhead and facilities,” he said. “That certainly holds true here.”
Challenges in St. Cloud included working with a refugee population whose customs did not include the practice of a written language. Emphasis was placed on verbal skills, with the highly verbal youth viewed more favorably academically. Reading was not considered emulating adulthood, Watkins said.
Those students were exempt from testing for one year, but afterward their scores were counted among the masses.
In Duluth, challenges dealt a tremendous need to reduce the number of buildings built with the idea of community schools.
Watkins entered Elk River in the midst of ongoing construction projects thanks to a successful $98 million bond referendum. He has been getting familiar with those projects, some more intimately than others, as rain damaged Elk River School, wind took down scaffolding at Rogers High School and rain has slowed work on a K-8 facility planned in Otsego.
Meanwhile, he is getting up to speed on the work of TeamWorks International, a consulting firm, on developing a facilities plan that will help deal with what to do when buildings become crowded and boundary lines changes. A committee of 40-plus community members and District 728 staff has been assembled to help do this work.
Watkins has learned the district has a consultant working on a review of existing practices, delivery systems and expenses.
He held the welcome back program for District 728 teachers and staff earlier this week at Rogers High School.
He’s also delving into the work of the district on energy conservation efforts to better manage energy consumption.
Additionally, Watkins has met with the new St. Michael-Albertville superintendent to talk about common issues and the Elk River city administrator to learn about Elk River’s fall referendum and to talk how the district and city can partner.
The 2016-2017 school year starts on Tuesday.