Georgetown ISD superintendent

Fred Brent was hired to serve as Georgetown ISD superintendent June 23 after former Superintendent Joe Dan Lee announced his retirement in late March. Brent first became a superintendent in 2006 at Anderson-Shiro CISD before becoming superintendent in Alvin ISD. Brent, who prior to becoming a superintendent served as a teacher and a high school baseball coach, has a doctorate in educational leadership from Texas A&M University.

What drew you to Georgetown?

I was at Alvin ISD for 3 1/2 years, and knew that [my wife and I] wanted to find a place to call home for [our children] Austin, Alex and Abby. We would like for all of our kids to go to the same high school and be in the same district for those years. So it was really important for us to find a place that we can call home, and we wanted to live in the Central Texas area. When the Georgetown superintendent position came open, it was just perfect for us and what we wanted for our family.

How did working in other districts prepare you for Georgetown ISD?

My career could not have been designed any better to prepare me for the Georgetown job. I worked in a small district as a superintendent that had a very strong community identity much like Georgetown. Then in Alvin, I worked in a very fast-growth district where we had to constantly improve our organizational structure and capacity to accommodate the new student load.

Everything Ive done in both districts as a superintendentGeorgetown is sort of right in between the two.

What are your first priorities for the district as the new superintendent?

Its my job to adjust to the needs of the district, not for the district to adjust to me.

Learning the needs of our students, staff and our community is my top priority right now. The district has a five-year strategic plan, and my job is to understand where we are right now, where the plan is designed to take us and bring that to life.

What are some of the opportunities the district has today?

We have an amazing opportunity to hold on to the culture that makes Georgetown special, which is a culture of being an excellent school district for kids and families.

Whats made this place great, I believe, is that it has always been kid-driven, and for the future, the needs of students are changing greatly. To prepare our kids for the future may mean that some of our learning platforms need to change, and we may need to adjust.

I feel like Ive come in at the perfect time to be prepared for the next steps in the districts life.

How do you plan to continue to be involved in the community?

I try to be very sensitive to where the board needs me to serve and to where the leadership team needs me to serve.

I will also be learning [the districts] needs firsthand. Ill be involved as a dad in the lives of my kids.

I will serve in community and civic organizations when appropriate, and I will also meet with civic groups when appropriate as often as I can.

My job is to serve and understand where our people need me to be and what they need from me so I can help prepare our kids. I just try to serve.