Osseo school chief takes over this week

Kate Maguire, 49, takes over as superintendent of the suburban Osseo School District on Thursday. She succeeds Susan Hintz, who is retiring to spend more time with her husband, a schools superintendent in Indiana.

Maguire grew up in Virginia, Minn., and has education in her genes: Both her mother and her grandmother were teachers. She has been a social studies teacher, junior high school principal and administrator in the Osseo district for 25 years. She inherits the leadership role of the fifth-largest district in the state, with 21,000 students.

Perhaps more important, she will be leading a district that is in good financial shape for the near future. In large part, that's because a lot of the budget-cutting pain has already happened; the district made $16 million in cuts in 2008. That included the contentious closing of two elementary schools and revamping of programs at four other schools. Maguire will make $194,555 a year.

The Star Tribune interviewed her recently. Responses have been edited for space.

Q In 2008, the district made $16 million in cuts, closed two schools and changed the programs at four other schools. Has the fallout from that continued?

A Any time you close schools, there are students who are impacted, and so it impacts families. It's a difficult transition. So, I think there still are probably families who are impacted by those school closings. ... I believe there were some families who did leave the school district. ... I think there is some residue of hard feeling, yes. When we went through the last major budget reduction, which was in 2002, I believe, we saw a similar loss of enrollment for a period of a year or two, and then an increase in enrollment.

Q How is the district's financial health?

Q Any plans on going to your voters for more tax revenues?

A Not next year. Perhaps not the year after. I think we have to get into the next school year and see what's in store for us.

Q What's your take on the precarious state of the economy and its impact on schools?

A I think school leaders face challenges related to the economic and political context in which we live. The economic picture in our state and country, in terms of being able to fund education at a higher rate, is very, very difficult. We face stiff competition with other human services and other needs, obviously, both at the state and federal level.

Q What can you do to protect schools against the ravages of a sick economy?

I need to be a passionate and vocal supporter of public education and its importance to the very core of our democracy. ... We need to make sure that legislators, both at the national and state level, members of the community, members of the public know about the good work our school system is doing and other schools systems are doing. We have to collaborate in a way that perhaps we didn't in the past, not only with other school districts but with legislators, other community partners, and inside our school districts.

Q More students mean more money in K-12 funding from the state. What's the student enrollment picture in Osseo?

A Our enrollment is fairly stable now. We have a number of students who attend other schools. They're our students, they live in the communities we serve, and we have a number of them who choose other public school options, whether they're charter schools, or other public school districts. But they live in our communities and could attend our schools. We're very interested in drawing those students back.

Q Teacher contract negotiations start again soon. What are you looking for out of those in these difficult times?

A I think our school district and others hope to contain some costs because we don't anticipate increased revenue from the state or the federal government. We're going to be looking for an understanding of that.

A No, I would not say that. It's too early to tell.

Q What are your immediate plans for the district?

A We're already starting to plan for next fall. ... My intent is to continue the work that we've done together under [Susan Hintz's] leadership. That was part of the goal of having a candidate for superintendent from the inside. We've got a strong strategic plan in place. We have a supportive community and a high-functioning school board. Our goal was to continue the work that we've begun over the last few years.