The man who led the Galesburg School District for the past three years is ready to turn over the reins. Friday is the final day on the job for Superintendent Bart Arthur.
Arthur came to Galesburg in 2005 to serve as principal of Churchill Junior High. He later became an assistant superintendent for curriculum, then took over as superintendent in 2012.
Arthur said he had a couple goals in mind when he became superintendent.
“I wanted to work with communicating with parents, and I feel like we’ve done that with the addition of Skylar, which is an emergency messaging system and also just an informational message system,” Arthur said.
“And then the other thing was to try and get our district to a one-to-one computing situation. I feel like we've done that and I'm very proud of that because the future for our kids is going to be in using technology.”
Arthur believes the seeds for last year's teachers strike were sown three years earlier when talks on the previous contract went down to the wire. He said he tried his best to come up with an agreement that worked for taxpayers, teachers, and the school board.
“I wish that we could have had a different outcome, but it’s done and hopefully people understand that I didn’t do anything to try and hurt teachers. And I also felt like I couldn’t hurt the taxpayers and our board. It was a tough position to be in,” Arthur said.
Arthur said a combination of the strike and his health led to his decision last September to call it quits.
“I was struggling still trying to recover from a stroke, and to do that while a strike is going on is not easy to do. So the strike had something to do with it. But the reality is, I knew coming into the superintendency that (a strike) was a possibility, no matter where you are,” Arthur said.
Arthur said he has few regrets as his time in the Galesburg School District comes to an end.
