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Q&A with Albuquerque Public Schools superintendent finalist Thomas Ahart
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“Education is a people business.”
Thomas Ahart, one of the final two remaining candidates to become Albuquerque Public Schools’ next superintendent, would be one of the first to tell you that making substantive change in a large public school district doesn’t happen overnight.
So when it comes to steering an enormous ship, it all starts with building relationships.
“Schools exist to serve kids, but that requires a lot of adults,” he said. “I always emphasize that it’s our role as adults, whether it’s an administrator or a custodian or a teacher or a bus driver or a food nutrition server, that we’re always modeling expected behavior for our students.”
“As a superintendent, I need to model the expected behavior of all of our staff,” he added.
Formerly the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, which like APS is the largest school district in its home state of Iowa, Ahart says experience is one of his greatest advantages as he vies for the Albuquerque public education system’s top job.
Ahart’s career, which suffered a widely-publicized blow in 2021, has had its ups and downs.
But while he felt at the end of his tenure as Des Moines superintendent in 2022 that “the last two years felt more like five or six,” Ahart says he’s ready for the challenge of APS.
“I have applied for very few positions. Albuquerque is one that’s hugely attractive to me because of the size,” he said. “I’m ready to step into a bit of a larger district than what I’ve been in.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Q: Where are you from?
A: I’m from Iowa, originally. I left Iowa after high school graduation, though, and lived in Colorado for 12 years, and then returned to Iowa, and I’ve been here since.
Q: How much experience do you have with Albuquerque or New Mexico in general?
A: I was in Albuquerque for the better part of a week several years ago, when APS hosted the fall Council (of) the Great City Schools conference. I had visited for very brief periods of time a few times over the years, traveling, visiting friends and so forth.
Q: What do you hope to bring to APS?
A: I think my experience, having served for 10 consecutive years as a superintendent in a large urban district. I understand the ebbs and flows of how that goes, and how to partner with a board of education in the service of students.
Q: You were with Des Moines Public Schools for roughly 10 years, which is a pretty long tenure for superintendents these days, especially. Tell me about that dedication to Des Moines Public Schools, and how you may bring that to Albuquerque Public Schools?
A: I was actually with the district for 14 years. Education, specifically, pre-K (through) 12 public education, is a people business. You can’t get anything meaningfully done, or sustained anyway, if you don’t have good relationships, and I think one of the reasons that I thrived in Des Moines was my ability to really build good relationships with the community … And I’ve committed my career to improving outcomes for students, especially those students who maybe don’t have a real level playing field.
As much as it would be within my power, I would be there for the long term.
Q: Why did you ultimately leave Des Moines Public Schools?
A: As everybody experienced to some degree or other, COVID was an extremely challenging time … and it really became a highly political matter.
We came upon a decision where the board was going to decide for the next two weeks whether we would stay in virtual instruction or not, and the board chose to stay in virtual instruction. And I advised them that while that may be the best thing to do for the health and welfare of our students, it would also violate the governor’s emergency orders.
So my choice was to honor the will of my board — which I believe they were operating in the best interest of our students and staff — or to disobey my board and bring all of our students back into school. I chose to honor the will of my board, and … I was brought before the Board of Educational Examiners on an ethics charge.
I took my lumps, and the administrative law judge I think recognized, to a large degree, the position that I was put in, but still did issue me a reprimand.
Toward the end of that school year …I offered my resignation. They wished to keep me on, so I stayed on that year, and then there was a board election in the fall, and a significant turnover on the board, and so at that time I met with the board officers … and I again offered to, in a planful way with them, resign.
Q: Would you do it over again the way you did? And if anything, what might you change about that response?
A: I’m glad you asked that question, because in some spheres, I have been characterized as a rebel and trying to buck the system. And I can tell you that that is not at all the case. I did everything I could think of to keep my board fully informed and advised.
If I were in a similar situation where what the board was asking me to do was different from what the state was asking me to do, but I believed that the board was acting with the best interest of students and staff at heart, and were following their own moral compass, then I would do the same thing again.
Q: On a more positive note, I have also read about some of your efforts within DMPS in promoting equity and anti-racism. How would you bring that to Albuquerque Public Schools?
A: Well, I know that that’s really important, and highly valued and prized by the board and the district. And so the first thing that I would do is to learn.
Sometimes coming in from the outside, you have a different lens, and you can see, sometimes, some blind spots that may exist.
I would want to make sure that there was a solid plan in place to continue to further the work in equity with the ultimate goal of having equitable outcomes for all students regardless of the demographic description. There’s always work to do in that regard.
Q: APS has a good number more students than DMPS. … How do you expect to tackle that challenge and come into a district that is bigger than the one you previously led?
A: That’s a fair question. … Like Albuquerque, Des Moines is the behemoth in the K-12 world, and that can be a burden. It can feel like a burden to staff, and to feel like you’re always in the spotlight, to feel like you’re the only one that’s given attention for negative stories and don’t get enough credit for the positive things that happen.
One of the things that I really tried to develop within Des Moines, and I would do the same thing in Albuquerque, is to ensure that we’re leveraging our size as effectively as possible. There are things that can be done from a cost containment and an efficiency standpoint that you can only do if you’re a certain size.
Q: Anything else you want Albuquerque to know ahead of Tuesday’s public forums and the board decision the next day?
A: I am steadfastly dedicated to improving outcomes for kids. I believe my well-rounded background positions me well to think through all aspects of the district operation, with a laser-like focus on how each of those operations is impacting our students.
It would be an honor to join the APS team and the APS community, and I look forward to getting to know everybody better.
Q: Final question for you … red or green?
A: Yeah, I have to go with green. I go through so much green chile, it’s kind of ridiculous. But I would look forward to having easier access to good red and green.
