A few months ago, Tim Herbert wasn’t planning to be the next superintendent of the Concord School District.
He loved his job as the head of Concord High School and could see himself staying there for at least the better part of the next decade.
This fall, however, everything changed rapidly. Stepping into the role on an acting basis was, to Herbert, merely doing something to help out the district and his mentor, Kathleen Murphy.
Herbert, 44, is now the sole finalist to succeed Murphy, a lifelong educator who died unexpectedly in August.
He lives in Dunbarton with his family, including three children between the ages of three and eight. The Concord school board is expected to confirm him at their meeting on Monday night.
Herbert is well known at Concord High after six years in the school’s administration, but as the superintendent, he’ll oversee the district’s eight schools and roughly 3,700 students. He said he wants to bring more project-based learning to the district and help teachers explore and refine classroom strategies.
At a meet-and-greet this week at Concord High, families and the community got a chance to sit with Herbert and ask questions. They wanted updates on the middle school project. They were curious about new initiatives planned for the district. They remarked that he looked young and wondered if he would be around for a while.
Below is an interview with Concord’s incoming superintendent. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Concord Monitor: What made you decide that the superintendent job was something you wanted to do permanently?
Herbert: At first, it was an action I took to help the district through a difficult time. I was unsure of where things would go from there. I knew I would like the job, because I would be challenged, but I didn’t know if it was going to be what I wanted to do – timing is so important with that kind of a job.
As I started progressing more, understanding the influence the superintendent has across the district, I started to realize the opportunity that was there. With a lot of the knowledge and skills I developed working closely with Kathleen over the last couple of years, I actually was a pretty good fit for the job moving forward, at least, I thought so.
I started to see the bigger impact you can make that way, listening to the principals of the buildings, what is it they’re trying to accomplish, and how does it fit into the direction we need to go. So I started getting really excited about that, probably around late October, early November.
Monitor: Murphy had been a mentor to you. What was it like stepping into that role of superintendent overnight, as well as handling her loss?
TM: That was tough, yeah. We didn’t know how severe it was – I was told that…around January, she would come back, she would slowly work her way back.
So in my mind, it was: Okay, my boss needs my help. Do my job, do my best.
Clearly, in two weeks time, that was not the case. It starts sinking in that I have to make the decisions. There’s no Kathleen to go to.
Also, it was not easy to walk away from Concord High. It’s got to be similar to, someday, when I’ll have to leave my kids off at college.
I have very fond memories working with this administrative team through very difficult times. They’ve gotten to see my kids be born – it’s a tight-knit community.
Kathleen was probably my number one mentor I’ve ever had. And I think I’m doing something to help her out, just for the time being, and then losing her, and then at the same time, realizing I’m walking away from this place, it was quite a roller coaster of emotions.
Monitor: Through your years working with Superintendent Murphy, what were some of those traits or skills you learned from her that you felt equipped you for this new position?
TM: Making difficult decisions. As a principal, I’m fortunate that I had somebody like her to be a sounding board, but there was an expectation. I didn’t come to her with the problem; I came to her with potential solutions, and we talked through the solutions, and then I would execute whatever it was we determined.
Secondly, Kathleen would talk with anybody. If anybody called and had a concern, she would she would listen, she would return your call.
One thing I took away from that was — not necessarily that it was an open door — but if people reach out to you and say they would like to talk to you, return the call, return the email, regardless of how much time has passed.
One thing that I had going into this over the other experienced candidates was a stability and a consistency, being a known quantity. People know exactly who they are calling, and they don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call. So, like, there’s a level of comfortability. Like, even though there are shifts in positions, we know it’s Tim, we know he’s going to dig in and help us out.
Monitor: What’s do you see the district as doing well and where, maybe, would you take things in a new direction?
TM: We have fabulous teachers. What we do well is, we have teachers who are very intelligent, very good at their craft, and can reach students on various levels any given day of the week. Our teachers dig in and do a lot. I would say the same for our administrators.
Over the last few years, we haven’t really dug into the best instructional practices. We have a very veteran teaching staff, however, they are starting to retire. Bringing in people, they haven’t had a chance to really refine that craft. We have this opportunity where we’ve done a lot of work around building professional learning communities. It’s a structure for people to work together, talk, collaborate, but now we have to move beyond building the structure: how are we teaching kids, and how does it need to change?
Monitor: What do you see as the biggest things on the horizon for the district, both challenges and opportunities?
TM: Open enrollment is going to be something as a district that we’ve got to tackle. We want to maintain and be a good regional partner – similar to what we do at CRTC. We’re going to dive a little deeper into it – how can we potentially participate in open enrollment, but be a good neighbor to the schools around us?
Also, we have our budget. Not only with the revenue shortfalls coming from the state, but we also have the Concord taxpayers being hit with a number of projects right now. One thing that we’re doing very carefully is looking beyond our budgets, looking at our resources, and what are things that we don’t necessarily utilize to the fullest capacity, and we could, maybe, do without and have that be a cost savings to the taxpayers.
But I think we’re a top-notch district, and I think we’re going to just excel beyond this in the next five years. With the leadership we have in the buildings to the community feel we have between our teachers, administrators and our SAU, I just think good things are going to be down the road.