New Arlington ISD chief looks to celebrate what public schools have to offer

Although he hasn’t officially stepped into his new role yet, incoming schools chief Matt Smith already has plenty of good things to say about the Arlington Independent School District.

A big part of his new job will be saying those good things as loudly as possible to as many people as will listen. Smith, who takes over as Arlington ISD’s new superintendent on Tuesday, said one of his top priorities for the beginning of his tenure is trumpeting what public schools have to offer, particularly as public confidence in schools declines.

“We have to celebrate the good work that’s already happening, not just in Arlington ISD, but in Fort Worth ISD, in Dallas ISD, in our neighboring school districts,” he said. “There are dedicated professionals on a daily basis that are doing extraordinary things for kids.”

Smith comes to Arlington from the Belton Independent School District, where he served as superintendent. He replaces Marcelo Cavazos, who retired from Arlington ISD last year after serving as superintendent for 11 years. The district’s board named Smith its lone finalist at a meeting last month after what members described as an exhaustive search.

“Our lone finalist set himself apart from others with his innovative ideas,” said board President Melody Fowler.

Smith said Cavazos left the district with a long list of partners in industry and in the larger community. The fact that those partnerships already exist puts the district in a strong position going forward, he said, because he and other district leaders can continue to build on them rather than starting from scratch.

Partnerships with industry are critical for the district’s efforts to prepare students for life after high school, Smith said, because schools have to prepare students to work in careers that don’t exist yet. Business leaders can help the district tailor its training programs toward what employers will likely need when students are ready to enter the workforce, he said.

Career and technical education programs also represent one of the most exciting and fastest-moving areas of public education, Smith said. Over the past decade, there’s been a renewed interest in those programs, he said, and districts are doing a better job of providing hands-on experiences for students interested in certain career paths. Students who graduate from those programs leave high school with real-world skills that could lead to a career, he said.

School leaders need to find ways to invite the public in to see what their schools have to offer, Smith said. There are exciting things going on in public schools, he said, but the larger community often doesn’t know about them. In many cases, parents and other community members don’t understand how much public schools have changed since they graduated high school.

Smith pointed to an eighth-grade theater class he visited recently at Gunn Junior High School Fine Arts and Dual Language Academy. Students in the class were thoroughly immersed in the learning experience and proud of the work they were doing, he said.

“I think it’s pretty special to see those things coming to life,” he said. “I do think the more people could see what’s really happening at schools, the more they’d be proud.”