The Garden City Telegram

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G.C. native to lead Topeka Public Schools

Published 7/11/2011 in Local News

By JEROME P. CURRY

jcurry@gctelegram.com

Julie Ford, who was born and reared in Garden City, became a teacher and eventually USD 457's deputy superintendent, is the first woman to lead the Topeka Public Schools.

Her appointment as USD 501 interim superintendent was announced Friday.

"I actually am starting on Wednesday," Ford said in a telephone interview today. "My resignation (from the Kansas Department of Education) is effective on Tuesday."

She has been KSDE's director of title programs and Services for the past three years.

Ford called Garden City "the flagship of my career."

She began teaching at USD 457 in 1977, eventually became staff development coordinator in 1993, acting director of instruction in 1995, director of instruction in 1997, and deputy superintendent in 2003.

She said she learned many life lessons in USD 457.

"Garden City Public Schools can prepare you for anything — its diversity, its size," she said.

Topeka school enrollment, she noted, is larger than Garden City's 7,400 students and there are three public high schools rather than the one in Garden City."

Her roots remain deep in southwest Kansas.

Ford plans to be in Finney County on Saturday for her daughter's Garden City High School Class reunion. She also wants to tour the new high school, scheduled to open in the fall of 2012.

"I have had a great career," she said, citing more than three decades in the public schools, much of that in Garden City. In Topeka, Ford succeeds an ailing John Morton, who had been interim superintendent of Topeka Public Schools only a week when he resigned Wednesday. Morton said he was forced to quit because of his health and family. He was not specific. Morton, 67, had been school superintendent in Newton. Morton had succeeded Kevin Singer, who resigned to accept a position in Pennsylvania.

Ford was contacted on Thursday, accepted the offer and the announcement was made on Friday by the school board.

After leaving USD 457, Ford had been either superintendent or a top administrator in several venues, including appointments in Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma.

"I am a 1974 graduate of GCHS," She said. "I graduated from Garden City Community College in 1976."

She said she remains a Buffalo and a Broncbuster. She said she still bleeds brown, white and gold.

Brown and white are the GCHS colors; brown and gold, the GCCC colors.

Ford is no stranger to the Topeka schools.

"I have been working for the Kansas State Department of Education for the past three years but have been involved in Topeka Public Schools basically through the Kansas Learning Network," Ford said. "I feel really excited about this opportunity."

Said Patrick Woods, Topeka's school board president, of the Ford appointment: "This was not simply going down the list according to rank and picking who was second. ... We needed someone to hit the ground running who had the energy and was excited to take on this challenge. That's what we got. So we got our number one choice for this situation."

Ford earned her doctorate at Wichita State University and her bachelor's from St. Mary of the Plains. Her Ph.D. dissertation was "Identification of Waste in a Student's Day."

Her Topeka Public School salary will be $150,000.

She has been superintendent in Trinidad, Colo., and an area superintendent in the Tulsa, (Okla.) Public Schools.

Ford recalled her Tulsa experience with the No Child Left Behind Act and adequate yearly progress.

"In 2007, we had 29 schools on improvement and 17 came off school improvement," she said.

She called former USD 457 Superintendent Jim Lentz and current superintendent Rick Atha mentors.

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