A 14-year career leading the Cleveland Hill School district will soon come to end. Superintendent Jon T. MacSwan announced his decision to retire at the conclusion of the current school year in June. MacSwan mentioning he’s given “everything he’s had” to the district.
“Everything that Jon MacSwan knows and understands about leadership, creating and initiating change and a vision in a school district I've given everything I have to this district for 14 years. I feel like to stay in the seat, I'd almost be riding it out.”
MacSwan says unlike in the beginning of his tenure when most of the good ideas were originated from him, most of the new ideas now come from his leadership team.
“A lot of the great initiatives now, not a lot of it anymore comes out of my head. I have an incredible leadership team, including teachers, administrators, principals, that often now I'm listening to their ideas going, yep, I like that. Let's do that. You know, before it was Jon MacSwan, [saying] hey, we're going to do this, this and this.”
MacSwan mentions this won’t be a “put your feet up” retirement. He plans to be actively involved within the school district and the Western New York area as a whole.
“This is not going to be one of those retirements where Jon MacSwan is going home July 1 and putting his feet up. I will, still look to stay engaged in public education, leadership development, myself and the recently retired superintendent from Hamburg, Mike Cornell, we're actually working now with Buffalo State. They've hired us to create and lead a Superintendent development program.”
When MacSwan first started in the in the district in September of 2011 it came after years of instability at the position with the three previous Superintendents leaving the district for other job opportunities or retiring. “Steadying the ship” was a priority for the district as well as MacSwan.
“It was definitely something that the board had aspired to do. And I think they had been looking for that over the previous superintendents that they had had in and it was certainly an issue that was identified by the board. So, you know, I remember through my interview process that was definitely something they made very clear that they were looking for someone to be here, you know, for the long haul. And with all intent, I did. I was pretty committed when I came here.”
MacSwan has steadied and transformed a lot for the small school district in 14 years. When asked on his biggest achievements at the district, “Project Achieve” was the first thing that came to mind.
“We launched this school improvement initiative called Project Achieve probably around 2013, and it was to improve student achievement. We spent almost a million dollars on that initiative to get it to go. It was a big investment our business official at the time, Dennis Corsaro, said to me, you know, if this doesn't work out, you'll probably get fired.”
Since 2013 the district has gone from the bottom in student achievement data to the top quarter in numerous categories.
As the clock starts to run down on MacSwan’s tenure at Cleve hill he mentions how he can never truly “walk away” from the district even in retirement.
“Cleveland Hill, its been the most rewarding, challenging, exciting chapter of my professional career. I genuinely love this place, the community, the kids, the faculty, staff. I'll never walk away from Cleveland Hill. They'll still see me around here, but just changing my relationship with all those different stakeholders. [Retirement] you know that it's nothing you can look forward to.”
MacSwan’s final day with the district will be Monday June 30th.
