Pete Schiff's days will soon be filled with playing golf, going to Padres games and taking trips around the country. It will be a decidedly different routine from the past 10 years.
Schiff, 60, retires June 30 after a decade as superintendent of the Ramona Unified School District.
Replacing Schiff will be Bob Graeff, who has been the district's assistant superintendent of educational services for seven years.
“Pete has done a very good job for us in the district,” said Bob Hailey, a school board member for nearly 12 years. “We're grateful for what he did for us, and we look forward to continuing to move the district forward with Bob Graeff.”
The Ramona district serves about 6,800 students in nine elementary and secondary schools. During Schiff's tenure, the district built Hansen Elementary School, which opened in 2004, and rebuilt what had been Hansen Lane Elementary to become a new home for the district's alternative program.
Schiff has experienced highs and lows during his 10 years at Ramona Unified.
He arrived a year after voters rejected a $25 million bond measure to pay for school construction. The district qualified for state hardship funds, however, which paid for the two schools.
In 2002, voters rejected another $25 million bond measure that would have paid for a new middle school.
Three years later, teachers and parents protested a 6 percent pay raise the school board had given Schiff, saying it was excessive. Trustees said Schiff deserved the raise, which put him on par with superintendents at comparable districts.
Hailey said that under Schiff's leadership, curriculum and instruction have been standardized across the district, and student test scores have risen.
“Pete was able to come in and put in place a lot of procedures in the administration that filled some holes that had caused some problems in the past,” Hailey said.
Schiff said his biggest challenge when he arrived in July 1998 was attempting to change the community's perception of the school district.
“It's been difficult to have the people outside of the education community, including the parents and kids who go here, really recognize what an asset this school district is to the community,” he said.
“There has been, in the past, a thought that if you were from a less affluent part of our town, it wasn't important to have the same curriculum than if you were in a more affluent part of town,” he said. Now “everyone has access to the same curriculum, the same textbooks.”
“Our test scores have gone up – not because I was here, but because we were working together to make that happen,” Schiff said.
Graeff will continue to build on the district's successes, Schiff said.
“He's been a key player in helping us get where we're at,” Schiff said. “He's student-focused. He sees the big picture. I think he's the right guy to move the district to the next level.”
Schiff, an educator for 37 years, was assistant superintendent for business services at Bonita Unified School District in Los Angeles County before coming to Ramona. Before that, he was an industrial arts teacher and baseball coach at Sweetwater Union High School District in South Bay and then a principal with La Mesa-Spring Valley School District in East County.
“Ramona was a smaller school district, not as big as the ones I had been in,” he said. “It was an opportunity to make a difference.”
Schiff's wife, Karen Schiff, retired two years ago as principal of a middle school in the Cajon Valley Union School District in El Cajon, so the two are now making travel plans.
“We're going to take about six months just to kind of take a deep breath and figure out how this is going to all work for us,” he said. “I'm going to play a lot more golf, do a little more traveling to a lot of places around the U.S. and the states we haven't visited yet. Oregon, Washington, most of Canada. I haven't seen the East Coast at all. New England. I'd love to do that.”
Staff writer Janet Lavelle contributed to this report.
Ruth Lepper is a freelance writer in Ramona.
