Dr. Joe Gothard, Superintendent of the Madison Public Schools: Madison’s Favorite Son (Part 2 of 3)
Dr. Joe Gothard, who took the helm as superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District in May, was born and raised in Madison and worked for MMSD for many years.
by Jonathan Gramling
When it was announced that Dr. Joe Gothard was appointed to be the superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District, it created a positive buzz in the district, from search firm members to former school board members to current and former parents to community leaders. Many, many people had worked with Gothard over the years or had been touched by his work within the school district. Some were disappointed that he wasn’t appointed superintendent back in 2012 when Superintendent Dan Nerad left the district. And so Gothard comes into his new position for what is expected to be a relatively long “honeymoon” period as he takes the reins of the district.
Leaving MMSD was a difficult decision for Gothard.
“I applied for in 2012 but did not receive the job in Madison that was — at that time — an opportunity for me to do one of two things, stay and continue to work for helping Madison get better or leave and try to truly look for opportunities for my own growth,” Gothard said. “That’s why I left in 2013 for Minnesota. I spent four years at Burnsville and seven years at St. Paul public schools. I didn’t leave with this rage or ‘I will show them’ attitude in 2012 and planned to come back. I truly left for growth. I had experienced so much and my lead-up to that time I was absolutely kind of addicted to professional growth.”
And the move led to personal growth in ways that Gothard couldn’t have anticipated.
“I wasn’t fearful of something new at all because I knew the benefit it would have for me,” Gothard said. “One example of that is in Burnsville, Minnesota of all places. It has a very large concentration of East African Somalian residents. In Madison, of course, we are represented by the globe but not in a concentration like that where for the first time, I was invited to join and participate in getting to lean and know a culture that was brand new to me. That was such a gift. In my second year at St. Paul, we started an East African elementary magnet school. It is believed to be the first of its kind in the country. I don’t know if that happens without that immersive experience I had in 2013 as a brand new superintendent
getting to know my community. It’s opportunities like that which I look back on now and see that they have paved the way for me to think of Madison, to think about my own practice and think of how the students who can be served differently.”
The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath had a big impact on Gothard.
“We had political unrest and polarization in this country that it feels as though we are trying to pull that back,” Gothard reflected. “Of course we can’t. There are vestiges of that. We had a global pandemic that we hadn’t seen for 100 years, back in 1919. And nine miles from my house, we had a murder at the hands of the police and the death of George Floyd and the proximity I had to that. I got to experience so many firsts as an adult, as a system leader, as someone who is connected to political figures and people from around the country and yet I had no answers for children, people who were looking for answers, direction and guidance.”
And so Gothard decided to drill deep into what the students were experiencing because the pandemic had impacted their lives and development in sometimes very dramatic ways.
“I learned that the best way that I could connect with the students during some of these times was to be side by side with them, to not just go and show up and check the boxes saying I was with the students, but to really dig deeper and spent time and follow-up and get to know students in a deep and personal way so that I could understand the advocacy and what students wanted from their school district. I worked hard to deliver that. That is hard to do. There are competing interests in school districts. But again, to answer the question on how the children are doing, you start first by asking the children how they are. It’s very simple. It really is. ‘What’s on your mind? How are you? What can I do for you?’ It isn’t a strategic plan reaction to this. ‘If you are having a problem with this decision, well then tell me how you are experiencing school’ to try to help inform my practice, to try to inform how I work with our board and the various constituents in the school district. I am very proud of some of the student-led work that I was a part of and look forward to continuing here in Madison.”
For the last several decades, MMSD’s student population has remained consistently just above or below 25,000 students even though Madison has grown tremendously in the last 50 years.
“Madison was 179,000 in 1970 and it’s about 300,000 today,” Gothard said. “I don’t know if more children are here or not. I haven’t looked at the census to see the numbers for school-aged-children. I guess that it has been steadily increasing and maybe plateaued. It’s probably down a little bit now right now just in terms of the birthrate. But this city is growing exponentially. I see that in housing and the pressure systems are having with both the city and the school district asking for referendum. It’s gotten very difficult to operate with this exponential growth, especially with some of the state laws that impact our ways to fund our operations. The other interesting thing within 50 years of growth is the percentage of children of color who identify that way in our school district has gone from 13 percent in 1970 to 60 percent in 2020. Again, I’ve been gone for a while, so I haven’t been as attached to the demographics of Madison. But I think some are surprised by that stark difference not to say that people don’t recognize that we’ve changed.”
And while the student body has become more diverse, it is a new challenge to recognize what each student needs within that diversity.
“One of the things that we have to truly discern — and this is where engagement is really important — is when assumptions are made about marginalized or certain groups, there is incredible diversity within diversity,” Gothard said. “Certainly when you talk learning the answer or what you are passionate about, this isn’t a one size fits all. And that is both the sheer beauty of education and also one of the biggest complications. Our systems are not created or funded to uniquely meet the needs of every individual. It just isn’t. We work as hard as we can to try to disrupt that. But that is both the challenge and goal of education the way that I am looking at it. We have 25,000-26,000 students. I want to know what each individual truly needs to be successful. As the educational leader, I want to provide the support and resources to achieve that. That’s the challenge.”
Gothard cautioned that schools shouldn’t put students in silos based on their demographic characteristics. It is important for students to be engaged and that means with each other.
“We have also learned and grown so much from embracing cultural identity and truly learning about it,” Gothard said. “I shared about the Somali families who literally took me in. It wasn’t like I had all of this knowledge and experience. But what I did was I said, ‘We have a Latinx staff over here. We have a Somali staff over here. We have a Hmong staff here. And they came together. Even when we believe we are serving with an equity mindset, we have a greater task of bringing down barriers by bringing people together, sharing experiences. It’s very empowering. And you have, in many cases, voices that aren’t heard that can come together and feel like they are being heard and valued and can contribute. I convened people because I was interested in learning about them. I think our students bring that same cultural currency and our families certainly do. We have to do much better at that. And that could mean doing some of the things that Madison used to. But we also have to look at ways to do family and community engagement different too.”
In November, voters in the MMSD attendance area will be asked to vote on two referenduns, one for operating funds and one for capital that will allow MMSD to renovate and in some cases rebuild its middle schools, many of which are over 70 years old. Gothard feels that keeping up MMSDs building infrastructure is important, but the most important thing is to keep its eyes on the prize, which is all students succeeding.
“Some of our facilities are 60-years-old,” Gothard said. “We identify them on a facilities condition report. Each school has a grade. We can tell you which ones need work now and which ones are inching closer to that level of disrepair. That is truly the case for some of our schools. At the same time, there has been research over time about the shiny new object. That doesn’t necessarily change what is happening inside of the schools and the experience that the students have. Again, I’m not complaining or dismissing the great support from the 2020 referendum or the work that has been done. But I think that one of the greatest questions that we can ask about our school district is to ask any child after a day at school, ‘How was your day? Tell me why.’ And listen to what their experiences are. Again if someone says, ‘It was so hot because my school doesn’t have air conditioning and blows hot air all day,’ we can take care of that in referendum, great. But what it also says, ‘I was never called on. I wasn’t seen. I was teased by this kid,’ things like that. ‘I can’t do anything right in this class. I try my hardest, but I couldn’t get passed.’ Those are the kinds of things that we have to focus on, that we need support for as well.”
There are many challenges lying ahead for the Madison Metropolitan School District in areas like staff salaries, and reading proficiency. It is a plus to have Dr. Joe Gothard at the helm of the schools that he has practically grown up with going on a half century.
Next issue: Reading proficiency and more school issues