Fresh Start for New Supe

On the first day of school, Milpitas Unified's new superintendent knew what it was like to be the new kid on the block.

Cary Matsuoka came on board this summer, and though his previous office at the  is less than 20 miles away, he's getting used to a whole new environment—with more students and more challenges.

Matsuoka has spent the bulk of his career at the high school level, where the students are teenagers. This morning, while visiting Burnett Elementary, he noticed lots of little kids with their parents.

"It's neat watching the parents and kids begin school together," he said. 

On the first day of classes on Monday, he planned to visit 14 school sites, nine of them elementary schools.

From teacher to principal

Cary Matsuoka has had his share of first days of school—31 to be exact, counting Monday—starting from his days as a teacher.

He taught science and math for more than a decade at Saratoga High, before he served as assistant principal and principal at two high schools. 

"As I remember it, Cary taught AP Chemistry and Advanced Placement Computer Science at Saratoga while I was principal," said Kevin Skelly, now superintendent of the Palo Alto Unified School District.

"He was one of the finest teachers I have ever seen and also did a first-rate job as science department chair," he said. "He is a man of the highest integrity. He worked hard, cared about students and was collaborative in everything he did."

Matsuoka left teaching for an assistant principal position at Lynbrook High and later became principal at Cupertino High. Both schools are in the Fremont Union High School District.

While principal at Cupertino High, he brought Alison Coy on board in 2004 as the assistant principal.

"First of all, he is a big believer in systems thinking," said Coy, who said Matsuoka's methodical approach—sitting down early in the summer to plan processes, for example—would result in the first day of school being less traumatic.

"In my first three years as an administrator [at another high school], I had spent a lot of time on the minutiae," she said. But having systems in place freed her up to do more important work.

Matsuoka is also a "backward planner," she said, meaning he starts with the end result and formulates the steps to make it happen.

From principal to superintendent

In 2006, Matsuoka returned to his old school district, the Saratoga-Los Gatos High School District, but this time as superintendent.

"Cary, when he started with us five years ago, had never been a superintendent before," said that district's board president, Michele van Zuiden. 

"We helped him learn the way and the ropes," she said. "Certainly in five years, he's grown a lot."

Kerry Mohnike, English teacher and Media Arts Program coordinator at Saratoga High, knows Matsuoka from his years when they were both instructors. In recent years, she's volunteered as a lead negotiator for the teachers union at the district level, bargaining with Matsuoka over teachers salaries and benefits at the table.

Earlier this year, teachers, the district and parents worked together to help pass its first parcel tax.

Many consider Los Gatos-Saratoga to be a wealthier school district, because its revenues come from property taxes, but the tax revenue had declined while expenses had risen slightly.

The was "so critical for our district," Mohnike said. 

The parcel tax is estimated to bring in $800,000 annually over the next six years.

"If he hadn't pushed forward with that, we would have been in a lot worse shape than we are now," she said.

"We were using our reserves," said Matsuoka. "We were right on the verge of cutting programs."

From Los Gatos-Saratoga to Milpitas

An opening for superintendent at Milpitas Unified meant Matsuoka could go from a high school district with slightly more than 3,000 students to a kindergarten-through-12th-grade district with nearly 10,000 students.

"I know Cary felt like he was ready for the next step in his career," said van Zuiden. 

"We're fortunate that we feel we have a stable district right now," she said, which is attributable to the passage of the parcel tax and two great principals at Los Gatos and Saratoga high schools. "If you had to pick a time, this was the time."  

In terms of school budgets, Matsuoka leaves a basic-aid district, where property taxes bring in most of the district revenue. There are 60-80 such districts out of about 1,000 in the state. Milpitas is a revenue limit district, meaning state taxes supplement the district budget.

"I think he loved his time at Los Gatos, but I think he was ready for a bigger school district and a larger challenge," said Coy.

"With his passion for serving kids who need more ... he was looking for a population who could use his special brand of thoughtfulness."  

Working with minorities and narrowing the achievement gap is something that he wants to do, Matsuoka has said. Students in the Los Gatos-Saratoga high schools have less of these characteristics—about 99 percent of the graduating class enrolled in college this fall.

As Kerry Monike of Saratoga High said, "Milpitas is a good fit for him with his interest in more diverse populations."