Superintendent retiring Superintendent retiring (May 14, 2004)

Gratiot to leave Los Altos schools; hopes to teach at university level

By Julie O'Shea

After nearly 40 years with Los Altos schools, Superintendent Marge Gratiot said she plans to retire at the end of next year.

Gratiot said she began thinking about retiring last year. She has been in her current position for almost two decades, an unusually long tenure for even the most dedicated of superintendents.

The school board has asked Gratiot to stay on another year to help the district through its fiscal uncertainty while it searches for another top administrator.

"If we could clone Marge that would be great, but that's not a possibility, I don't think," said school board President Victor Reid, adding that the hiring process will be extensive and will involve input from teachers, administrators and parents.

While Gratiot is retiring from the Los Altos district, she is in no way retiring from education. The 61-year-old grandmother said she hopes to spend her golden retirement years teaching at a university and advocating for education reform in Sacramento.

"I'm not the kind of person who is happy puttering around in the garden. And I hate cooking," Gratiot said last week.

The longtime superintendent said she has been working in the profession for so long that she can't imagine quitting all together. However, she added, it is time to start a new chapter. Still, Gratiot acknowledges that the transition will be a bittersweet one.

After all, it was Los Altos that saw Gratiot blossom from a young first-grade teacher fresh out of Stanford's undergraduate program to a principal and then an assistant superintendent before finally rising to superintendent in 1987.

"I love it here so much I never thought about leaving," Gratiot, a Los Altos Hills resident, said.

Finding a new superintendent will probably take a year, Gratiot said, adding with a laugh, "You don't just put it on craigslist," referring the popular online job board.

It will be hard to fill Gratiot's shoes, school board member Margot Harrigan said. "She's an institution. My instinct is I'm looking for a Marge clone, but I'm really not."

Harrigan said she hopes to find someone who will be able to build upon the foundation Gratiot has put down; things like the teacher mentoring program and intense community involvement.

"She has incredible command of the district," Harrigan said. "Every single step of the way, (she's) been building the community.

"She has given 110 percent -- I know that's a lot to ask," Harrigan said. noting that one of the toughest challenges a new superintendent will face -- besides district's high academic expectations and uncertain budget -- is the "Marge ghost" that will no doubt linger for two or three years after her retirement.

E-mail1 Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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