BY PEPPER FISHER
Port Angeles – Port Angeles School District Superintendent Marty Brewer has announced to the School Board that he will retire at the end of this school year.
More specifically, Brewer, in a letter to the board, described it as a “transition to semi-retirement and new ventures.” We asked him what he means by that.
“Not sure. I’ll be 60, and I want to spend the next few months kind of determining, “What’s next?”. I feel like I have at least two or three good years in me, and since I started my career 36 years ago, I’ve never been quote-unquote unemployed without the next job up. So, it’ll be kind of exciting to determine, kind of, what’s next on my things to do.”
Brewer was hired in 2018 and has seen a lot in his 7 year tenure here. The pandemic, a teacher strike, and multiple attempts at getting voters to approve levies and bonds. We asked him what he is most proud of.
“There’s a lot to be proud of. I think at the top of the list would be our capital facilities plan. You know, our schools are aging in our community. And so, we have a plan to replace three of the buildings. I’m really proud of the work we’ve done with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. When I came here, there were folks in our school community who didn’t know much about the Lower Elwha Klallam tribal people. And so we worked really hard in our school community to change that, not only for our staff, but also our students. I’m really proud of alternate education options. You know, we created the Seaview Academy few years ago. Those are a few that would come to the top of the list.”
Brewer also said he was proud that, during the pandemic, our district brought its students back to school among the earliest of any district in western Washington.
Among the challenges his district faces in this, his final school year, Brewer says PASD, like many districts across the state, is still recovering financially from the effects of the state legislature’s 2018 McCleary decision, which he calls “a broken model” for funding our schools. But he’s optimistic, and grateful.
“All in all, I think this is a great, great district, with a lots of advantages. And my goal as the educational leader of Port Angeles is to lay the foundation for a successful transition to our next superintendent. I’m totally vetted in this district. I love it. I love this community. And so, I want to do everything I can to make sure that there’s a successful change in leadership to allow the successor to experience some of the great experiences that I had here in Port Angeles.”