Morgan Hill Unified School District veteran administrator Glen Webb was promoted to the new Director of Curriculum and Instruction, filling the final leadership vacancy at the district office.
Webb, principal at Britton Middle School since 2010, started working at Live Oak High School in 1985, teaching science, mathematics and physical education. He then spent two years as an assistant principal at Martin Murphy Middle School prior to becoming principal at Britton.
“I’m going to miss it a lot,” said Webb, who started his new post immediately after closing out his fifth year at Britton. “The buzz that a campus has, the fun, the kids, the staff, the pace…being at a school site is a lot of fun.”
Webb joins MHUSD’s Educational Services Department that has a new leader in Ramon Zavala, who comes to Morgan Hill via Compton Unified School District. Zavala’s hire was announced at the June 23 school board meeting. He replaces Norma Martinez-Palmer, who resigned after three years as the assistant superintendent of education services.
“Right now, we’re both trying to get ourselves up to speed on all the things (the district) is already in the middle of,” said Webb, who will help in the decision making for initiatives such as the district’s exploration of grade level reconfiguration at the elementary and middle school levels.
“Part of what I’ll bring to the job is continuity of things that are in the works,” Webb added. “That’s a real credit to Norma and Arlene before us.”
Statewide, districts are ushering in the new accountability system, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which has replaced the now defunct Academic Performance Index, as well as fine tuning the Local Control Funding Formula and Local Control Accountability Plan.
“We’ve learned a lot,” Webb said. “A lot of our success at Britton really came down to educating our community, educating our staff and making people understand what (assessment measurements) really mean and where work really needed to be done.”
Britton surpassed the 800 threshold on the API index under Webb’s watch before the state eliminated the assessment system.
“I just facilitated staff and students to believe in themselves and do the things they wanted to do,” Webb said. “They just took off from there. The staff at Britton was on fire.”
Webb displayed his uncanny knack of crunching numbers (student data) during public hearings over the last two years as MHUSD fought off several charter school management companies seeking to open schools to serve students in the district. Webb was a regular at the podium, outlining the district’s accolades and how MHUSD schools were outperforming charter schools.
“Glen Webb’s leadership has been about high expectations and student engagement for all students. His expert analyses and use of student data to support change is going to be very beneficial for the entire district as he steps into his new position,” MHUSD Superintendent Steve Betando said.
During his tenure at LOHS, Webb, who was a science department chair, was involved with extracurricular activities as well—coaching football, wrestling and track as well as taking lead roles on campus improvement projects and curriculum, textbook and standards adoptions.
“The most important thing is I’m happy to be here to do whatever I can to contribute to the (district’s) success. I’m confident in the direction of the leadership,” Webb said. “I am also a believer in healthy debate, everyone rolling up their sleeves and working together. I think we have that in Morgan Hill. There’s no other place I’d rather be.”
