Sacramento City Unified School District has a new superintendent. The school board voted 6-to-1 last night to hire Jose Banda. He comes from Seattle where he has been the superintendent for the past two years.
Banda says he has used data collection in his previous stops to identify areas in need of improvement in the classroom.
"If we really tunnel down on the data, and continue to look at, especially for English learners, we look at multiple pieces of data, then we saw where the gaps were. We didn't see the gaps by just looking at the state-mandated test results. We didn't see that by looking at some of the interim assessments. We had to go even deeper than that."
Banda says a recent court decision overturning California's teacher tenure laws was "surprising" and that it creates opportunities for the district to have new conversations with the teachers union.
Before working in Seattle, Banda was superintendent in Anaheim.
He starts his new job August 1. His annual salary is $290,000.
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.