Popular Educator Takes Northern California Post : San Marcos Schools Superintendent Leaving

Bill Streshly, the popular and effective superintendent of the San Marcos Unified School District, is quitting to become superintendent of the larger San Ramon Valley Unified School District, 25 miles east of Oakland.

Streshly, 47, has been superintendent for more than five years and is credited with improving classroom curriculums, promoting labor harmony between the staff and the school board, and publicizing the problem of teen-age pregnancies at San Marcos High School.

Streshly will receive $80,000 a year in his new post, compared with his current $64,420. Last December, the school board offered him a bonus benefits package worth $6,000 for assurances that he would not look for a job for the next three years. Streshly accepted.

On Friday, he said the new job “was handed to me on a platter, and I took it because it’s a rare professional opportunity and an excellent district.”

He said he will return the bonus.

Streshly said he did not know his name had been sent by a consultant to San Ramon trustees to succeed the retiring superintendent until he was asked to be interviewed Wednesday as one of six finalists.

He was hired that night and signed a four-year contract, which begins July 1.

He characterized the San Ramon Valley, with nearly three times as many students as San Marcos, as affluent, high-achieving and fast-growing. He said the challenges will include “fine-tuning the curriculum” and mending fences between teachers and the school board in the wake of recent labor unrest highlighted by wildcat strikes.

Ira Katz, president of the San Marcos school board, said news of Streshly’s resignation was “a great surprise, except that we knew that people from all over the state were interested in him.”

He credited Streshly with the ability to handle both short- and long-term management and planning problems “while still placing great emphasis on human values and not letting people feel like they were falling through the cracks.”

“We did well by him,” Katz said. “We used him well during the time we had him.”

Among Streshly’s bolder management decisions was to announce that 20% of San Marcos High’s girls had confided to a school counselor during the 1983-84 school year that they were pregnant.

The news shocked the community and brought unfavorable publicity to the district, but in the long run, it promoted a new level of in-home discussions about teen sex and brought about improvements in the junior high school curriculum designed to build students’ self-esteem by attaining success and accepting responsibility.

Katz said the school board will meet Monday to discuss finding a successor.

“The ship is in good order,” he said. “We should look pretty attractive to a lot of people, so maybe we can get another up-and-coming superstar.”