School district gets new deputy superintendent

Pat Skorkowsky, named new deputy superintendent of Clark County public schools on Monday, is in many ways the opposite of his predecessor.

He is a longtime district employee replacing Pedro Martinez, who was hired from outside the district just a year ago by Superintendent Dwight Jones, also new to the district at the time. Martinez just left the district to become superintendent of the Washoe County School District.

Jones decided to hire from within this time, also vying for someone with a background in education, both of which made Skorkowsky a good "fit," said the new deputy superintendent who starts Wednesday.

While Martinez was a certified public accountant with no classroom or school-level experience, Skorkowsky has always been in education.

Martinez was audit manager at Deloitte & Touche and Pricewaterhouse- Coopers before switching to education as the chief financial officer and budget director of Chicago Public Schools for almost seven years.

Skorkowsky came to Clark County 24 years ago to teach first grade at Ronnow Elementary School after earning a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Oklahoma State University.

He has steadily climbed the ladder, completing his master's degree in educational administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and serving as assistant principal at Eisenberg, Kahre and Bracken elementary schools.

Skorkowsky moved up to principal of French Elementary School and held that position for five years before becoming principal of White Middle School for three years. He went on to open Webb Middle School as principal.

In May 2006, he became assistant superintendent for what was then the district's southeast region.

For the past year, he has been an associate superintendent overseeing 108 schools.

Now, he will continue reforms begun under his predecessor at all 357 schools in the country's fifth-largest district.

And he isn't waiting until his official start day on Wednesday. He came in at 6 a.m. Monday to start the transition.

"We need to stay the course, make corrections where we need to and let the reform vision for the district take root," Skorkowsky said.

He already is familiar with the district's reforms, assisting in the replacement of No Child Left Behind's pass/fail system with the Nevada Growth Model and implementing the new school-ranking system, called the School Performance Framework.

"Pat was a critical partner for Mr. Martinez this year in instituting our reform initiatives," Jones said.

Skorkowsky also is working at the state level with the Teachers and Leaders Council to shape a new system for evaluating teachers.

The district will pilot this new evaluation process this school year, replacing the largely subjective system with a more objective, results-based approach.

He also is heading the development of a statewide kindergarten through 12th grade assessment.

"We're moving forward to a new phase of reform," he said.

He is adamant that excuses cannot be made for the lagging performance of students with limited English skills.

"Language isn't a barrier to intelligence," he said. "It's a barrier to content."

This issue is pressing in Clark County, where one-fourth of students have limited English-speaking skills and more than 40 percent of students are Hispanic.

"Pat's professional motto is 'Every student, every classroom, without excuses, without exception,' " said Jones. "I think that's just right."

Skorkowsky will be making between $107,484 and $144,036, which was the salary range for the posted job opening. Martinez was making $158,796 at the time of his departure.

Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@review journal.com or 702-383-0279.