Dr. Donald Eismann This is Me

Education

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1. 1. www.puyallup-herald.com

   www.puyallup-herald.com/100/st - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/29/2008   Last Visited: 2/29/2008

   The IB program was made possible by the career-long effort of former Superintendent Donald Eismann, who favored high academic standards. More than 100 students are enrolled so far, with 40 aiming for full IB diplomas.

2. 2. www.puyallup-herald.com

   www.puyallup-herald.com/main/s - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/27/2007   Last Visited: 11/27/2007

   Dr. Donald Eismann's office isn't much different than many school superintendent's.
   
   There are framed degrees that tell of his educational background, a computer where he stays current on the news of the world and a shelf that includes everything from a mystery novel to seminar notes on teacher training.
   
   And then, in the midst of all his educational materials, is a framed poster of a famous cover of The New Yorker hanging on the wall.
   
   It is of New York City, with the bustling detail of people, vehicles, buildings, streets and boroughs, out to the Hudson River. But just beyond the river the details disappear and become practically nothing.
   
   "That was my view of the whole world," Eismann remembers. "Pretty much, the world ends at the Hudson River."
   
   It was the mind set of a New Yorker, he said, but the beginning of a journey that would let the life-long learner fill in the details beyond the Hudson.
   
   As the superintendent of the Sumner School District for the past 22 years and an educator for 41 years, he has weathered the path to see a district double in size, open a new high school, have students consistently score high on WASL, have more nationally accredited teachers per capita then any other district in the state and be certified as an International Baccalaureate program. This June, at the end of the school year he will retire from a career he hadn't planned on.
   
   NEW PATH IN NEW YORK
   
   When he first went to college, he was certain he would become a university professor.
   
   It was not uncommon for him and his fellow aspiring professors to mock those who wanted to teach elementary school.
   
   "I thought anyone could teach kids," Eismann said.
   
   So why would anyone want to teach elementary, he added. It wasn't intellectually stimulating enough.
   
   He couldn't have been more wrong, he said, a lifetime later.
   
   It was almost by chance that he found himself in front of a classroom full of children as their fifth grade teacher.
   
   "I was strolling down the streets in Brooklyn and I saw a sign that read ‘We want you to teach,'" Eismann said.
   
   It was the summer of 1965 and there had been a shortage of teachers, he recalled, and he thought why not. He had found out the professor's path was not for him and had been working for the department of health as a venereal disease investigator.
   
   It wasn't really what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, so he signed up and spent eight hours a day, five days a week that summer earning his teaching credentials in a City College of New York classroom with no air conditioning.
   
   At the end of the summer, he gathered in a gym with all the other new teachers and they were asked what they wanted to teach. Eismann raised his hand when school officials asked who wanted to teach elementary school.
   
   "I don't know why I raised my hand for elementary," he said.
   
   It may have been because he wasn't planning on teaching children for more than a couple years, he recalled.
   
   "A couple days later I was at P.S. 11 on Staten Island with a fifth grade class," Eismann said, explaining public schools in New York had numbers, not names.
   
   By November he was hooked.
   
   "I realized I had found the thing I wanted to do the rest of my life," Eismann said. "It was serendipitous."
   
   He would read poetry to his students and they would challenge him as much if not more than he would challenge them.
   
   "It is (teaching elementary school) some of the most difficult work anyone could ever do to do it well," he said. " The problem is everyone thinks they can do what a kindergarten teacher does."
   
   For three years Eismann spent his days in a elementary school classroom teaching in an environment he hadn't planned on being a part of.
   
   Eismann moved to Germany to work as a school teacher for the U.S. Department of Defense.
   ...
   A few years later, Eismann and his wife made their way to England where he began to dabble with the British approach of providing teacher learning centers in public school systems. He started the first American teacher center in England, a method he would continue in Sumner.
   
   "I enjoyed the opportunity to create training for teachers," he said.
   
   A LITTLE PLACE CALLED SUMNER
   
   Ever flexing his intellectual muscle, Eismann and his wife decided it was time to go to graduate school. Paula was from Washington and when Eismann was given the opportunity to take a research apprenticeship at the University of Washington, the move to the Evergreen State made sense.
   
   It was not long before he was working for the Seattle School District on a research study about the impact of closing schools, something that was found to have a devastating impact on the neighborhood, he said.
   
   Then in 1976, a posting came along from a little school district called Sumner looking for an administrative assistant.
   
   "This was before Mapquest," he said. "And (highway) 167 wasn't finished yet."
   
   Even without a technological guide, he made his way to the farming valley and interviewed for the job.
   
   "They hired me," Eismann said. "I've been here ever since."
   
   One of the first major projects he was in charge of was the planning and construction of Lakeridge Middle School.
   ...
   "The first person I met in Sumner was Donald Eismann," Weathermon said.
   ...
   At that time Weathermon and Eismann were the district's administration team. On the nights the school board met the meetings would last until 10 p.m. and then the two would go back to the office and talk about what had happened, what went well and what they could improve.
   
   "Often Donald wouldn't get out of my office until 12:30 a.m.," Weathermon said.
   ...
   Eismann was living in Seattle and would make the midnight trip back home, sleep a few hours and head back to Sumner in the early morning.
   ...
   The board took his advice and hired Eismann, beginning 22 years as the district's leader.
   
   "I learned a lot from him," Eismann said of his predecessor.
   ...
   "I thought working with Donald would be a great professional step for me. Working with him was always so invigorating."
   ...
   Eismann was always setting the bar higher for what the district could be, Noland said.
   ...
   Looking back, Noland thinks Eismann will be remembered as a superintendent who brought great customer service to the parents and students of the district, improved the standards of facilities, but more than that a man who always tried to do the right thing, while treating people with dignity and respect.
   ...
   "Quality teachers do something that other people don't," Eismann said. "We have a great obligation to support them."
   
   He would always want to be doing something new in the academic arena and would encourage people to take the next step, Noland said.
   
   As the years passed, the district became known for academic excellence, Eismann said, and it starts with the tools that can be provided to the teachers.
   
   "Our kids deserve really the best," he said.
   
   THE MARATHON CONTINUES
   
   When he retires, Eismann will see the culmination of projects more than two decades in the making.
   
   On their third try, the district passed a bond that will fund the replacement of Lakeridge Middle School, the very school he was put in charge of planning more than 20 years ago.
   
   The district has a certified International Baccalaureate program 25 years after he first talked about it with his mentor.
   
   "There's always a desire to leave it in a better shape than when I came," Eismann said. "Sumner is a great place to learn. It is a better place to learn."
   
   Some of what he is most proud of is creating an environment where every person is valued, because it takes the whole organization to provide a successful education, he said.
   
   "Our business is really what happens in a classroom between teachers and students," Eismann said.
   ...
   "I really want to devote myself to something I really love doing, outside of work," Eismann.
   
   Two years ago, his wife retired after more than 30 years in education. Eismann would like to spend more time with her doing things they've always wanted to do.
   ...
   Eismann still takes time for college courses and soon will be a certified financial planner. He would like to provide planning assistance to those who really need it but can't afford it. Along with that he's been asked to give customer service and strategic planning seminars.
   
   "The idea of slowing down is not something I know," Eismann said.

3. 3. www.thenewstribune.com

   www.thenewstribune.com/news/lo - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/25/2007   Last Visited: 6/25/2007

   Donald Eismann, Sumner School District's superintendent, takes time last week to talk with Markelle Kelly at Daffodil Valley Elementary. Enlarge image COURTESY OF SUMNER SCHOOL DISTRICT Donald Eismann, Sumner School District superintendent, seen here in the late '80s or early '90s, improved the district's reputation through his hard work and innovation. He's retiring after 22 years.
   ...
   That's how people used to talk about the Sumner School District when Donald Eismann started working in the East Pierce district some 31 years ago.
   ...
   So after 22 years leading the district's quest for excellence, Eismann finally feels it's time to retire. His last day as Sumner superintendent is Saturday.
   
   "It's sort of like a baseball player," said Eismann, a Brooklyn native and fervent Yankees fan. "You hate to see them play ball when they're past their prime. The district is in really good shape. I felt it would be good to go out, hopefully as a .300 hitter, as opposed to a person whose diminished skills relegated him to the bench."
   
   Eismann's 22-year tenure marks one of the longest superintendencies in a state where superintendents' average stay in the same district is six years, said Paul Rosier, executive director of the Washington Association of School Administrators.
   ...
   "Donald is a creative mind that's open to any new possibility," Skinner said.
   ...
   "It's fun to work with Donald. You know something will happen and it'll be good for the community and schools and children."
   
   BUILDING SUCCESS
   
   Toni Froehling, a Sumner School Board member for 24 years, said the district's academic performance and the community attitude toward Sumner schools have undergone an "unbelievable" transformation for the better under Eismann.
   ...
   In the late 1980s, when statewide testing began, Sumner scores generally were among the South Sound's lowest, Eismann recalled.
   
   When Eismann came to the district in 1977 as a half-time administrative assistant, Sumner was largely a rural "property-poor" community, with little industry to support school property taxes.
   
   "We didn't have a lot of money. Instructionally, there were teachers who were doing good things, but there was no coordinated curriculum," Eismann said.
   
   Eismann eventually rose to deputy superintendent under then-Superintendent Dick Weathermon, who began to change staff perception of Sumner. "During those days Puyallup was the top dog and Sumner was 'Scum-ner,'" Eismann said. "He got people to think that maybe someday we would be as good as Puyallup."
   
   CUSTOMER FOCUS
   
   When Eismann became superintendent in 1985, he developed the theme that he has championed ever since: Treat taxpayers as stockholders, families as customers and education as the product.
   
   Back then, he said, "our customers complained a lot about the quality of the product, about the service they received. I spent a lot of time, and I still do, talking to district administrators and staff about our obligation to serve our customers … the way we expect Nordstrom to treat customers."
   
   He believes Sumner's "stockholders" should expect returns on their investment through the likes of high student achievement, marching band and choral awards, and wonderful drama department productions - dividends the district has yielded in recent years.
   
   Besides pushing the customer service mantra, Eismann instituted a rigorous hiring process, including daylong and group interviews, to find principals who were experts in instruction and learning.
   
   He pressed for more staff training. About nine years ago, Sumner became one of the first districts to begin assigning expert teachers, called professional development specialists, to schools, to coach teachers in instruction.
   
   And Eismann doesn't except himself from the need to keep learning.
   
   In the early 1990s, he enrolled in a management of technology program at Pacific Lutheran University to more effectively monitor the district's growing reliance on technology. Next, he took marriage and family counseling classes to better help the troubled families who came to see him as a superintendent. In 1999, he started commuting to University of Washington's Seattle campus for four years to study how children learn to read.
   
   He became the role model of a lifelong learner.
   ...
   "My dream is when I pick up the TNT five years from now," Eismann said, "the headline will be: Sumner best district in the state." MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
   
   Sumner School District highlights under Donald Eismann's superintendency from 1985 to 2007: