New deputy superintendent comes on board

Marcia Harris is no stranger to budget crises, having helped more than one ailing district pull itself out of the red.

She faces a similar challenge at the Shoreline School District, where she recently started work as deputy superintendent, second in authority only to the superintendent. The district’s financial crisis has led to the closing of 45 teaching positions and several other cuts for the coming school year.

Harris will oversee the district’s finances, business services, capital projects and human resources. She also will be responsible for organizing the finance department.

Helping to heal ailing districts is something Harris has done before, she said. Most recently, she was deputy superintendent for the Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, with the same overall duties she has in Shoreline.

“The reason I went to Peninsula was that they had a very, very difficult financial situation,” Harris said. “They weren’t sure if the district was going to stay afloat. A lot of budget cuts were made.”

The superintendent at Peninsula asked Harris to come on board to help fix the problem. She took the job in August of 1995.

It took several years for the district to get back on its feet, Harris said.

“The district is now one of the strongest in the state financially,” she said. “I did help those districts (Peninsula and others) turn a corner, to facilitate some financial turnaround. (But) one person can’t solve things — it takes a whole district to make things work.”

Winning the trust of the community was one of the challenges Harris and other Peninsula officials faced, she said. Community members voted down a local levy before Harris took the job, killing about 20 percent of the district’s budget.

“Trust was a huge issue in Peninsula,” Harris said. “They had 16 (state) audit findings that needed to be worked through. Things to do with the misuse of money.”

Harris spent her first year or two resolving those issues, she said. She worked with a citizen’s committee, ran feasibility studies and involved the community to help pass levies. Those levies passed, helping restore the district to financial health.

“I don’t think you can operate a school district without (community involvement),” Harris said.

Though Harris has worked extensively with community members in other districts, sometimes unpopular decisions have to be made, she said.

“Sometimes you need to do difficult things to maintain the integrity of the school system, and to get that integrity back,” she said.

Before Harris worked at Peninsula, she was superintendent of the Chimacum School District for six years and assistant superintendent of the Moses Lake School District for six years.

“I went to Moses Lake to help them out of financial difficulties,” she said. “It took a few years to help them turn around.”

She also worked at the Mabton School District in the Yakima Valley.

“(Mabton) also had financial problems,” Harris said.

She left her position at the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or OSPI, to help with those problems. The district turned around during her tenure there, she said.

Harris decided to come to Shoreline, she said, because she was looking for a challenge.

“I had completed what I had set out to do (at Peninsula),” she said. “I was looking for a new adventure.”

In addition to her school district experience, Harris has a superintendent credential from Gonzaga University.

She’d worked for Shoreline for four days when she spoke to the Enterprise.

“I’m now spending some time talking to people and listening,” she said.

She acknowledged the challenges before her, but spoke optimistically.

“We do have financial work to get done. It will be very challenging and will probably take a couple years,” she said. “I’m really honored to be able to serve Shoreline with (its) excellent tradition of strong instructional programs — which we will continue.”