New superintendent gets top marks from peers

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Sandra Lyon

Sandra Lyon, the district’s fourth superintendent in seven years, is faced with repairing rifts between Malibu and Santa Monica.

By Paul Sisolak / Special to The Malibu Times

A high-ranking administrator in the Palmdale School District has been touted by her colleagues and peers as the perfect choice for superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

When Sandra Lyon, a former journalist with a long career of academic leadership, takes over on July 1, it is hoped she will bring some measure of staying power as the face of local public schools, which have seen no fewer than three short-lived superintendents filter through the district in the last seven years alone.

Lyon said during her first 90 days, she’ll be meeting and familiarizing herself with various community and parent/teacher groups before the start of the 2011 fall semester.

Lyon, who also cemented her reputation in Palmdale as a guiding mentor and leader for its local principals, comes to Los Angeles County with the task of repairing what some have called a disconnect between Malibu schools and its Santa Monica-based parent district-a rift precipitated by a decision late last year declining a new charter school in Malibu.

The new superintendent was selected by the school board through an extensive, though brief, national search earlier this year following the announcement last fall of current superintendent Tim Cuneo’s retirement. With endorsements from board member Oscar de la Torre and Laurie Lieberman, Lyon was named three weeks ago as Cuneo’s successor. She’ll leave Palmdale as its chief leadership officer, a newly created position in which Lyon aided the district’s principals in management, student development and other issues since 2009.

“She was someone the principals could feel confident with questions and problems that come from the everyday life of principals in schools,” said Barbara Gaines, principal of the Shadow Hills intermediate school in Palmdale.

A native of Apple Valley, Lyon initially embarked on a print journalism career in the mid 1980s, managing photographer assignments and cataloging pictures for publications like Time and People. The opportunity allowed her to cover, among other events, the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco. During her time spent in the Bay Area, Lyon began working with young, at-risk teenage mothers at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, prompting her interest in teaching.

Lyon returned to Southern California and became entrenched in the Lancaster School District, first as a teacher, then assistant principal and principal at the middle and high school levels, before becoming the district’s director of curriculum. Afterward, she moved on to her first superintendent position in the one-school Hughes-Elizabeth Lakes Union Elementary School District in Lake Hughes.

There, she implemented an intervention program for students falling through the cracks of the school system. It earned the district a California Distinguished Schools Award.

“One was an eighth-grade mentoring/student success program, where we really worked with individual students to set goals. We created plans and students met with me on their plans,” Lyon said. “Nearly half of them had failing GPAs. And they said, ‘That’s kind of the way it’s always been.’”

Since 2004, the Santa Monica-Malibu district has been unable to hold onto a superintendent for more than three years. John Deasy was at the helm from 2004 to 2007. Dianne Talarico, who left for a position in Northern California, succeeded him for two years. She succumbed to cancer last month. Current Superintendent Cuneo followed Talarico.

Under Cuneo’s watch, parents and other constituents within the district blasted the superintendent for his opposing views over making Point Dume Marine Science Elementary a charter school. Cuneo last year had denied allegations that he said closure of the school was on the table, due to the financially troubled state of the district.

Lyon, however, said she is up to the challenge of gaining the trust of parents and has every intention of cultivating more permanency during her stay at the district level.

“The reality is that superintendents serve at the will of the board. There are some places where the superintendents go every time the board changes,” she said. “But I found that’s not the case in Santa Monica; they do want someone who’s going to be there for a while and be committed to the community. I think it’s a really good board and if we collaborate and work together, we can create something that has longevity.”

Palmdale educators said Lyon’s departure would come as a great loss to their district.

“I think that they [Santa Monica/Malibu] are going to be very pleased with their selection,” Gaines of the Shadow Hills School, said. “I think they’ll find she is one who does not run from a challenge. We’re sad, but we know she’s entering a new challenge.”

“[Lyon] made it all work and does it with class and style,” Mike Perkins, principal of the Oak Tree Learning Center in Palmdale, said. “She has the tough conversations when she needs to and everyone loves working with her.”

Lyon’s husband, Paul, is also a 17-year teacher, and the couple has two college-age sons.