A Lesson in Change : Retiring Superintendent of Vista School District Has Seen His Share

Although Gary Olson last taught in the classroom 25 years ago, he can still recall details of getting his students actively involved in discovering the mysteries that make chemistry come alive.

“I remember having the kids go through the lab process with four or five unknowns (chemical compounds) and finding out on their own what substances were involved and reporting to me on their conclusions,” Olson said of his teaching days at Vista High School.

“I didn’t want to just lecture,” he said. “The whole idea of cooperative learning, of getting kids to work with others and learn by doing, is something I’ve continued to be very much interested in.”

Same Philosophy for 25 Years

Olson has carried that philosophy--honed both at Vista High and before that at public schools in Minnesota--through the past quarter-century as assistant principal, counselor, elementary school principal, district instructional chief and, finally, superintendent of the Vista Unified School District for the past six years.

Now, as he retires at age 59, Olson will continue to look at the ways in which students learn--as a professor of education at Point Loma Nazarene College, a small school that is one of the top 10 in the state for training new teachers and school administrators.

During Olson’s two-plus decades in Vista, the school population has grown more than 300%. In his first year, the high school had about 1,100 students, Olson said. Today, the district’s three high schools have a combined enrollment of more than 3,500.

Total kindergarten-through-12th-grade enrollment alone has spurted to 15,000 from 10,000 during the six years Olson has been superintendent, reflecting the booming growth of North County, and Vista in particular.

Moving on Cutting Edge

Nevertheless, the Vista district has been able in large part to cope with the demands of rapid urbanization. The objective measures of district performance--standardized tests, college matriculation by graduates--rank the district among the top in San Diego County. Olson credits both the teachers at the district’s 15 schools and the Vista community for their willingness to accept new ideas and desire to move along the cutting edge of education.

“When I look back, I find we have tried to maintain a personal touch despite becoming as large as we are,” he said. “I have impressed upon everyone that every kid should be known as an individual, no matter their level of ability to contribute . . . and that we really will have high expectations for all our students.”

Asked to Sign Petition

In an informal appearance last week at a year-end assembly at the new Rancho Buena Vista High School, Olson was surrounded by several students asking him to sign a petition calling for alternatives to mandatory attendance at assemblies, such as independent study time.

“I see you got accosted,” one of the assistant principals kidded Olson. “I thought that might happen with the IB,” the International Baccalaureate academic program offered by about two dozen high schools across the nation. Vista was the first to implement the program in California.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you let kids start thinking,” Olson said.

He cited Vista’s IB program as a key example of how to carry out his educational philosophy.

“When I came here, I did not see as much high expectations for students as we should have,” Olson said. “Not that our community colleges are not good places to learn, but not as many of our kids were looking to the Harvards, to the Stanfords, as were really qualified. We needed to stretch ourselves. Academics needed a shot in the arm.”

The IB program, which now is offered at San Diego High and at Bonita Vista High in Chula Vista, is a rigorous curriculum with an international perspective covering history, philosophy, science and foreign languages that can meet certain college requirements.

A Risk Worth Taking

“We took a risk, but the staff was convinced that it was worth taking to move us to a higher level of expectations,” Olson said. The program, in all or part, is available to any student without special preparation, a position that satisfies Olson’s insistence that students not be pegged onto “can/can’t learn” educational tracks.

“And just the other night, we announced more than $1 million in grants and scholarships at Vista High,” he said.

Sometimes a Hard Sell

The philosophy of equal opportunity and high expectations is not always that easy to sell, however.

In the past couple of years, Olson wrestled with the problem of maintaining ethnic and racial balance in the district’s schools. The school board has had a longstanding policy of not letting the enrollment at any school go more than 20% above or below the citywide average of 32% non-white population. But some schools in central Vista are tipping toward two-thirds non-white, and Olson proposed boundary changes and some busing between elementary schools to maintain the policy.

“Vista is going to be facing this problem every year for the next several years,” he said. “And I am aware that we can’t persuade parents (not wanting busing for ethnic balance) with words, that we have to show them that all our schools provide a superior education, and that we keep our demand for high expectations out front for all teachers to demand for all students at all schools.”

When Rancho Buena Vista High opened last September in the southern part of Vista, Olson and his staff made certain that attendance lines were drawn to avoid having one high school become predominantly white or non-white.

Fleshing Out a Philosophy

Olson sees the ethnic policy as part of a larger effort being attempted by Vista to put flesh on a national philosophy that education is for everyone.

“While ostensibly we have said that we always have educated everyone--just as the American dream says--we really weren’t doing that 20 or 25 years ago,” he said, adding that education is better today than when he first started.

He holds to that view despite intense criticism of schools during the past decade and despite the fact that the average family structure in the United States today offers less psychological support of children in their schooling.

“I can’t give you accurate statistics, but I don’t think we offered as much to students before,” Olson said. “If you didn’t fit the mold back then, then you were left by the wayside, and that is what happened to a lot of Latinos. We had an automatic caste system, and only those who fit the mold made it.

“Society just didn’t worry about it (access) as much as we do today. Now we try to reach a much greater proportion of society,” he said.

In defending bilingual education both at Vista and elsewhere, Olson said that while the district attempts to move students as quickly as it can to all-English classes, some schooling in Spanish during math and social studies is necessary so students will not fall behind in basic skills while learning English.

Help Them to Compete

“We don’t drag it on, it’s not mollycoddling, but we’re giving special help that is needed,” Olson said. “We know instinctively that if a kid feels he or she is being helped to compete, that the school and teacher care about them as an individual, he or she will respond.

“Those who advocate sink-or-swim (putting all students into English classes) should know that some would respond but others would sink,” he said, noting that two of three Latino students from Vista High who will be attending Harvard next fall entered the district’s bilingual program speaking only Spanish.

But Vista’s efforts have not been restricted to ethnic minorities, Olson emphasized. He cited the district’s special education program at Alta Vista High as one of the county’s best. “Today we have more and more (developmentally disabled) able to be productive members of society than ever before, and that is something to be proud of,” he said. “But we probably can do even better than we are doing. . . . Many kids in wheelchairs have great brains.”

Olson credits the Vista community for its support of education in the face of competing demands for tax dollars and the drumbeat of criticism of teachers at the national level from spokesmen such as U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett.

“I think there is still a sense of community in Vista, that people still feel this is a good place to live,” Olson said. He cited a statistic that 50% of the class of 1965 from Vista High still live in the city.

“That’s why I wanted to move here way back when,” he said.

Olson will be commuting to Point Loma, however, beginning this fall in his new position at Point Loma Nazarene.

There he will coordinate a program for doctoral candidates, run jointly between Point Loma Nazarene and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. He also will help with the program for teachers studying administration in expectation of becoming principals.

“But I also will be doing my own research on the issue of grouping and tracking for instruction,” Olson said. “There’s still some tracking in Vista--not as much as we did before, but more than we should have.

“But helping teachers to try other methods, such as cooperative learning, is an evolutionary process and needs to be taught more beginning in education schools.”