The Higley Unified School District has gone to Texas to find its next superintendent.
The district announced Feb. 16 that it has chosen Nate Carman, superintendent of the Socorro Independent School District in El Paso, as its next leader. His contract, which would begin July 1, will go before the governing board for approval at its Feb. 21 meeting.
Details of the contract are not yet available.
Carman was chosen from a field of 30 applicants, six of whom were brought in for interviews with the governing board. The field was narrowed to two who appeared last week in a public forum, Carman and Mathew Neal, an educational consultant from Woodland Park, Colorado.
Carman will succeed Dawn Foley, who resigned last June. Sherry Richards, Foley’s associate superintendent, has been the interim superintendent.
Governing Board President Michelle Anderson said Carman’s experience was what made him rise to the top of the applicant pool.
“It was his years of experience as a superintendent that stood out,” she said. “It was his experience in the classroom and experience as an administrator and the accomplishments that he has made in the school district that he's worked in.”
Socorro Independent School District has more than 47,000 students on 51 campuses in a 135-square-mile area covering east El Paso, Horizon City and Socorro, Texas.
Previously, Carman has worked as superintendent in San Benito Consolidated Independent School District and Teague Independent School District. He has also worked as a district administrator, teacher and coach.
Carman earned his doctorate in educational administration from the University of North Texas.
“I'm happy to say that I believe my experience — 11 years as superintendent — is what Higley deserves,” Carman said during the public forum. “I don't think that Higley Unified is a school district where the new superintendent comes in and cuts their teeth.”
During the forum, as he introduced himself, Carman showed a Power Point slide with photos of his family members, including an old senior photo of his daughter, who had been heavily involved in dance growing up.
Carman used the photo of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl as an example of human nature having preconceived notions about people. She is now a mechanical engineer with a construction company.
“My point is this: As educators, we have students come into our classrooms, our hallways, our buildings, our district,” he said. “We have some preconceived notions based on what we see about them or how they first act or behave in our classrooms.
“Our job as educators, in my opinion, is to give them the ability to pursue their passions while providing them with the skills and knowledge so they can be successful when they walk across that stage in the career pathway they choose based on their aptitude and interests.”
Carman said his years at Teague Independent School District gave him much-needed hands-on experience because the district is so small.
San Benito Consolidated Independent School District was a poorly performing district that was in disarray with seven superintendents in the previous three-and-a-half years and had 80% of its students who were economically disadvantaged.
In his four and a half years there, the district created an early college academy and established three separate elementary academies: STEAM, Fine Arts, and Environmental academies. Carman said those helped turn the district’s enrollment and test scores around.
“We were facing some challenges, I don't think unlike maybe Higley and other area districts are facing,” Carman said about the decision to open the academies. “Charter schools are taking our students. I believe as a 30-year veteran, K-12 all the way through, we provide more for our students than any charter ever could.
“But parents want choices. Students want different opportunities, and we felt like it was important to offer those in place of strictly traditional elementary campuses.”
Socorro Independent School District was a high-performing district like Higley, but Carman opened another six elementary academies and turned around a small slip in scores.
Anderson said his work with opening specialty schools impressed the governing board.
“That was something that stood out, not that Higley is saying that they are ever going to do that, but those were successes that we saw that were very interesting and we found that was beneficial to those districts,” she said. “We just found that to be a great attribute and something very interesting that we don't have.”
The governing board felt confident in Carman’s ability to work with the board, Anderson said.
“He is a pro-public schools, and he's going to be great for one of the top districts in this state,” she said.
We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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