Spirito Announces Plan to Retire, May Run for Council

Supt. Joseph Spirito, who brought stability to a school district marked by teacher unrest, said this week that he may retire by September and eventually run for City Council.

Spirito, 65, said that after he helps open Ventura’s high-tech magnet high school next fall, he will have completed 40 years as an educator, and it will be time for him to segue into a less-strenuous life.

He will retire between September and June 30, 2001, when his contract expires, Spirito said.

“It’s time to begin a new life,” he said, “and that life will be divided between family and some type of political involvement in city or county or state government . . . possibly the City Council and maybe eventually the Board of Supervisors.”

Spirito, a Democrat, is already making himself more visible in local political campaigns. He has endorsed teacher Steve Bennett for county supervisor and Democrat Michael Case in his run against Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

Last year, he bucked his party to back Republican Chris Mitchum’s unsuccessful run for Assembly because of what he saw as Mitchum’s progressive positions on education and because Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson had not yet announced her candidacy, Spirito said.

“I went with Mitchum because we were both working on cutting out layers of educational bureaucracy and giving autonomy back to local superintendents,” he said. “But I’ve been very impressed with Hannah-Beth.”

Spirito said he will decide on a specific retirement date by the first of the year so that the school board will have plenty of time to find a replacement.

“I don’t want to leave them high and dry,” he said. “I’m committing to stay until at least next September.”

That is when he expects to cut the ribbon on the district’s third full-curriculum high school, which will be constructed near Ventura College. It will cater to students with a bent toward computers.

“That’s my baby,” Spirito said of the school, which is expected to draw 300 freshmen and sophomores the first year and eventually have an enrollment of 900.

He also wants to see through three other big projects before he leaves: the refurbishment of Portola Elementary School near the Ventura County Government Center, the combination of two elementary schools onto the new Sunset Elementary campus in Oak View, and the purchase of land for a new elementary in the Avenue area of west Ventura.

When he leaves, admirers say Ventura Unified will lose a rare commodity--a personable, energetic and even-tempered leader who rallies troops and taxpayers with equal aplomb.

He mixes regularly with teachers and parents. He shows up at school plays. He gives interviews to student journalists.

“There’s no doubt the district will miss him,” trustee Cliff Rodrigues said. “He’s approachable, and people talk to him. It’s not like you have to look up in the sky to reach him.

“And he has a way,” he added, “of getting people involved and getting to the bottom of things to solve a problem.”

Appointed superintendent in 1992, Spirito has solved more than his share.

In his first days, he faced crowded classrooms, low teacher morale and a retiree benefits program that threatened to bankrupt the district. He has helped the district regain community confidence after campus violence and sex scandals prompted by relationships between teachers and students.

A signature accomplishment, Rodrigues said, was Spirito’s role in persuading voters to approve an $81-million bond issue in 1997 to rebuild old schools and construct new ones.

“He let the community know that we had to do something about the poor condition of our schools,” the veteran trustee said. “And he got those bonds through.”

Spirito cites as accomplishments reducing high school dropout rates, improving state recognition of several Ventura schools as distinguished and his insistence that educators teach the importance of character.

“I guess you could say I’m someone who was responsible for helping to bring stability to this district,” he said.

But with his wife Mari’s retirement in June as a Mound Elementary School teacher, Spirito said it became clear that he should consider the same course.

So he will leave his $138,000-a-year position and take more walks on the beach, more trips to Italy--where his mother still lives--and try to get a job as an elected official.

“I don’t need the work,” he said, since his retirement benefits will be about $90,000 annually. “I just need to keep busy.”