Lane Set to Take Superintendent Post

Pittsburgh Public Schools Deputy Superintendent of Instruction, Assessment and Accountability, Linda Lane, takes over as Superintendent Monday and she knows she has a lot of work to do. Lane says she will be making sure many of the programs implemented by outgoing Superintendent Mark Roosevelt continue on the right course. She says that includes the Empowering Effective Teachers Program. “There is a lot of work to do around that,” says Lane, “we’ve got multiple initiatives, some of them are highly complex… execution of that at a high level is going to take a lot of time and attention from everyone.”

The 60-year-old Lane was given a three-year contract and she says they will be “critical” years for the district. “We are mid-stream here’” says Lane. She says she wants to find new ways to make contact with parents. “If you go to a city league basketball game you are going to have families jamming the gym. They are already there, so are there ways we can engage people at things they are already there for instead of expecting that they are going to come in for meetings that we just send home a flyer saying ‘please come on Thursday night at 6:00,’” says Lane. “My strategy has always be to go where they are.”

Lane says another goal will be to get all students ready to take advantage of the Pittsburgh Promise, which offers scholarship money to students going on to higher education or career training. To do that she says she needs the help of the entire community. Lane says, “Our students need the support of everyone in the community not just their families. So for any organization, agency and individual in the city of Pittsburgh, I just would ask for their support and encouragement for our students to let them know, yes, they can dream big and work hard and be promise ready.”

Lane succeeds Mark Roosevelt who has been superintendent for just more than five years. He is leaving Pittsburgh to become president of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Roosevelt hired Lane in 2007. Her new contract will pay her $200,000 a year first year, with the possibility of $15,000 more in the second and third years based on performance.