An Oakland man who grew up in Southern Marin was named this week as superintendent of the Sausalito Marin City School District, effective July 1.
District trustees voted 4-1 Thursday to approve a three-year contract for Itoco Garcia, 44, a 1992 graduate of Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley. He will earn a base salary of $190,000 for 2019-20.
Trustees Ida Green, Bonnie Hough, Debra Turner and Caroline Van Alst voted yes for Garcia, saying he was a “uniter” and would help bring the disparate factions of the beleaguered district together.
“It’s great to have him come home as a success story,” said Green, board president, noting that Garcia, who is a mixed-race Latino man, could be a role model for Latino and African-American youth at the district’s Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City and at Willow Creek Academy, a charter school in Sausalito that is under district auspices. “I cannot wait for a lot of our black and brown boys to see what they can accomplish if they work hard.”
Van Alst said she appreciated Garcia’s “energy and sentiments of unification and collaboration going forward.”
“It’s certainly what we need,” she said.
Trustee Josh Barrow voted no, saying it was “not personal” to Garcia, whom Barrow said he has know for “decades.”
“My no vote is not (about) Itoco, but it is a vote on principle about the size of this contract,” Barrow said. “When fully loaded, this (salary) is well over $200,000, well over $250,000 — in the context of other overhead structures. I think it’s irresponsible for us.”
Van Alst disagreed.
“While I would like to find efficiencies within our administration, given what we face going forward — potential consolidation, potential unification of the two (schools), multiple challenges we face coming ahead — I would like someone with full-time capacity to move us forward,” she said.
Garcia, who has a doctorate in education from UC Berkeley, was “very excited to have this opportunity to go on this journey with all of you,” he told the board and audience of more than 50 people after Thursday’s vote. “I’m also very excited to bring back the knowledge that I have applied at multiple other schools and communities that has led to transformative outcomes.”
Currently a director of customized support with San Francisco-based Partners in School Innovation, Garcia spent 18 years at schools in Oakland and Hayward, first as a teacher and instructional coach for 12 years and then as a middle school and elementary school administrator for six years.
“They say you can’t come home again, but I’m home,” he said. “It is a dream come true to be able to return here to a place that gave me so much.”
Garcia, who is bilingual, added in Spanish: “I am humbled and proud to be the first bilingual superintendent of this community.”
Garcia grew up in unincorporated Mill Valley and attended Mill Valley public schools. At the same time, he said he had many friends and mentors in Sausalito and Marin City and spent a lot of time in those Southern Marin towns.
“This (Sausalito and Marin City) community was instrumental for me, as a mixed race kid who grew up without my dad, in providing love, care and nurturing and many father figures, as well as additional mothers and grandmothers, from on the hill in Marin City, from public housing and from the houseboat community,” he said in a text message Friday.
Garcia, who takes over the reins from interim superintendent Terena Mares, is the sixth superintendent for the district in eight years, according to records maintained by the Marin County Office of Education. Prior to Mares, who assumed the role in July 2018 on assignment from the county office, was Will McCoy, who served from 2016 to 2018, when he resigned. McCoy was preceded by Bob Ferguson, who served in 2016 for a short time. Steve Van Zant served from 2013 to 2016, when he resigned amid a scandal and felony charges involving his role in a Southern California charter school operation. Van Zant was recently one of 11 people indicted in Southern California in a charter school scam. Valerie Pitts, a longtime Marin-area school administrator, served as superintendent from 2011 to 2013.
The district, which has had decades of turmoil and debate over the allocation of money, staff and other resources between Bayside MLK and Willow Creek, is still facing allegations from the state Attorney General’s office that it violated state anti-discrimination laws by running a segregated school at Bayside MLK. The state office also alleges that prior district boards of trustees diverted resources from Bayside to Willow Creek, resulting in a decline at Bayside MLK.
Current efforts are underway to rebuild Bayside MLK’s academic program. At Willow Creek, meanwhile, board members voted this week to adopt two resolutions calling for a diversity of membership on the board and an exploration of a “one-school” approach for the entire district.
