Libby Boss
Dr. Jill Geiser is in the middle of her “entry planning”— meeting with principals, curriculum directors, and district staff, reviewing testing reports, identifying students who need extra support, and preparing for a new school year with a new district configuration.
She has a deadline: school begins tomorrow, but she only formally became the new superintendent of Belmont Public Schools on July 1. What’s maybe more stressful is that she has to present her findings about the district — and a coherent plan for educating its students — to the School Committee tonight. She says she’s excited about it.
“This is a really exciting time for Belmont,” she told The Belmont Voice. “We are really having some good thoughts and conversations about what we want for our kids.”
In an affluent and traditionally high-performing district, her challenges are unique.
“How do we service all kids in this community?” she asks. “I feel like there’s a lot of opportunity here to dig into that and do some really good work around educating our kids in different ways. There are a lot of innovative opportunities that we can tap into, and we’re in a position to do that.”
Geiser and her husband have lived in Belmont since 2008, but her education work in Massachusetts has always been elsewhere: Lawrence, Somerville, Billerica.
“When I was an English major at [the University of Delaware], people would say, ‘What do you want to do, teach?’ and I would say, ‘No!’” she laughs.
A stint in the Peace Corps changed her thinking. In Nepal, she found herself teaching and training other teachers.
“That’s when I actually fell in love with teaching,” she said. “I just really came to appreciate the thought process of putting together a lesson in a classroom that results in kids learning.”
She made the move into education leadership after working for a non-governmental organization in New York City. She helped newly-arrived refugees get their children registered for school and signed up for services.
“When I was doing that, I came to realize that I wanted to be in a leadership role where I could make a bigger impact on how students were served, particularly with underserved students, how they were being supported in our school system,” she said.
Geiser earned a master’s degree in leadership at Columbia University’s Teachers College, later moving to Massachusetts while her husband attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She says her focus in leadership positions is on creating high quality education that serves all kids. Geiser says she is eager to close learning gaps across income groups, between disabled and non-disabled students and across racial groups, as identified by district scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).
She’s intrigued by a framework that the Belmont district recently started using which identifies at-risk students and gives concrete support both in and out of the classroom.
“The stronger that system is for a district, the more you’re going to be able to support all the students in the district, because you have the resources coherently laid out,” she said.
There are hurdles she’ll have to overcome, budget being the most significant. The town is facing an approximately $10 million shortfall, unless an override measure is passed. One way the district will save money this year is by cutting down on the use of substitute teachers. The high school will not have substitutes for any teacher absence less than three days. Instead, the class will be canceled.
Educating students who’ve just lived through a global pandemic is another challenge.
“But our work is about how we educate the kids who are in front of us. That includes not just academics, but it also includes the social-emotional learning and the mental health that goes with it.”
Student burnout in a high-performing district is another obstacle.
“We need to figure out a way to help students navigate the stress, while maintaining some level of academic rigor,” she said. “There’s a difference between rigor and competition.”
Geiser’s background in less-affluent communities definitely affects the way she plans to approach her job in Belmont.
“School districts are responsible for educating all kids to the best of their ability, no matter what the learning profile is or the demographic of the student,” she said. She acknowledges that not every student will fit into the same academic mold.
“The definition of student success — it might not just be one thing.”
Geiser is eager to communicate with parents and the community about their vision for education, and warns that things may look different from previous administrations.
“Video communication is something that I did a little of in my previous position. My intention is to bring more of that in as another way for people to receive information,” she said. She has already implemented that strategy with videos on the district’s YouTube page.
Belmont has some unique challenges, she admits.
“Being a superintendent is a pretty demanding role, and I knew I couldn’t just do it anywhere,” she said.
“I knew I needed to be in a community where the values were aligned around what we want for our kids in our schools. Living here, I understood where those values were. If I were to be a superintendent, Belmont would be one place where I would want to do that.”
While her own daughter, who attended both Wellington Elementary and Chenery Middle School, now attends a private high school in Weston, Geiser praises the district’s teachers and staff for their attention to detail and their preparation for a new district configuration.
“The educators here are super well-organized and diligent,” she said. “People are good at adjusting when needed.”
