New Washtenaw Intermediate School District superintendent Scott Menzel is still transitioning into his new role, but he believes his familiarity with the area is helping his adjustment.

Menzel spent the period from 2002 to 2007 as the superintendent of Whitmore Lake Public Schools before leaving to take over as superintendent of the Livingston Educational Service Agency, the Livingston County equivalent of the WISD. He took over from interim superintendent Richard Leyshock, who held the job from January until the end of June after the retirement of former superintendent William Miller.

Menzel said he’s thrilled to be back in the county and in a position to improve the school experience for students from Manchester to Willow Run.

“I’m excited about the opportunities we have in Washtenaw County to ensure that every child has the chance to get a successful and positive education,” he said. “It’s an outstanding community.”

WISD superintendent Scott Menzel

Courtesy of the WISD

The WISD will have an $89.83 million budget for the 2011-12 school year, with all but about $6 million spent on special education services and reimbursing county school districts for special education. Approximately $66 million of that spending will go to local school districts as reimbursements, with the rest being spent on WISD programs.

The WISD employs about 400 people, according to spokesperson Gerri Allen. The WISD school board approved four layoffs for the 2011-12 school year, according to district documents. However, Allen said there may not be any displaced staff due to attrition and other program needs.

The WISD enrolls 233 students, mainly for special education programs.

Menzel sat down with AnnArbor.com to answer a few questions about how he's approaching his new position.

The WISD spent down about $12 million in fund balance in the 2011-12 budget and there have been some questions about what’s going to happen next year. How are you working with the WISD’s finances to make sure the services are still the same things you provide in good times as well?

Menzel: Well, I think the financial challenges for intermediate school districts as well as local school districts are going to be real and ongoing. We have taken a very specific and intentional stance as to when we spend our fund balance with the constituent districts. None of these decisions are made in isolation.

At the end of the day, we make our resource allocation by what will make improvements in student achievement and that will always be the core question for the WISD, so as we look at what those opportunities are sometimes we need to think outside the box. We need to think about other opportunities there are to create revenue so we can create and maintain those services for students. I think that’s kind of where we’re at.

Where are you looking right now within the organization to find more efficient spending or to make things more streamlined to find those savings?

In some respects, it’s still early in the conversation. I’m still gathering information about the structure of the organization. We have the opportunity to reflect how we’re structured because we have some retirements coming in key positions; we have veteran leaders who will be leaving us by the end of August. We’ve begun the process of having a discussion about if we can achieve some efficiencies in how we’re structured as a result of that change in leadership.

There are a lot of people in the county who don’t know what the WISD does. How will you communicate your role in the community?

Generally speaking, if we speak about WISD students or parents of students who have disabilities, so they may be familiar with some of the services and support we provide. That would be logical. It’s typical for ISDs in may cases to be synonymous with special education services, but going beyond that we’ve been engaged in expanding opportunities with our partnerships with constituent districts through our secondary options programs.

The Early College Alliance, the WAY (Widening Advancement for Youth) program, the Washtenaw International High School will be starting this fall, so we have an opportunity in those areas to raise awareness about what the WISD does in partnership with constituent districts because we have students enrolled in programs.

Another is we need to take advantage of social media and getting information out there. We need to be intentional — we’re not going to jump into the deep end of the pool without really thinking through the strategies about how we can maximize that communication. I think that’s another way to raise awareness of what the WISD does and the services that it provides not only to constituent districts but also directly to students and the larger community.

The programs like the ECA, WAY programs have already started, and the IB program is set to start in the fall. What are you seeing in those programs and how have you familiarized yourself with them and how will you work to make sure those programs stick around and are a success?

While I was in Whitmore Lake, we were one of the four districts that were partners in the launch of the Early College Alliance so I’m familiar with the ECA from its inception. We also launched a WAY program in Livingston at the same time they launched it here, so I’ve got experience with launching that program from the beginning and can provide the support to ensure it's successful. It’s an innovative way of approaching learning for students and I think we need to be very intentional as to how we assess the success of the program.

At the end of the day, this is really about achievement. We need to ensure that whatever we’re doing raises the level of achievement for the students we serve.

With respect to the International High School, we’ll provide the support that we need to ensure its successful. I think it will provide an important service to students in the community — it’s an outstanding program and students who graduate from the International High School will be prepared to succeed in college and in life.

A lot of districts in the county, instead of looking at nearby districts, are looking to consolidate on a countywide level. How do you see the WISD and yourself facilitating that?

Again, the relationship between the constituent districts and the WISD is critical to moving forward in this conversation, but the economic reality is such we need to look at sharing resources and services, so whether that’s human resources or business office opportunities, we look to see does it make sense on a countywide level? With respect to the regional transportation, not everyone signed on but it made sense for those three. We look to identify those opportunities across the county where we can identify true cost savings that will free up resources to allow what’s most important: the teaching and learning aspect of our work.

There’s an openness in the county to rethinking how we do things and there’s a commitment from the superintendents group to do that, and they’ve formalized that commitment and the boards are open to it. Those are ongoing conversations.

We also don’t want to consolidate to simply say that we did it. If it doesn’t save money and/or improve student achievement, it probably doesn’t make sense to do it. We’re going to be very intentional about collecting data and making sure consolidation makes sense and will work. One of the challenges we have in the business service area is that we don’t all have the same software to operate those systems. We’re in the process of talking about how do we get to a common platform and once we get to a common platform, we can consolidate and share more easily.

Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.