“Well…”

Assistant Superintendent Michael Brady was stumped. He paused with a chuckle, grinning, then continued under his breath, “I don’t like talking about me.”

He leaned sideways in his swivel chair and crossed his legs, which were draped in loose-fitting, faded jeans. The rest of his clothing was fittingly modest: a fleece Giants jacket with the collar folded down, nametag tucked carefully into the zipper, and tennis shoes. This is the same man who has been the Assistant Superintendent for Business Services at PUSD for eight years, and an administrator for 20.

Now, Song Chin-Bendib has been hired to take over the business portion of his job, and Brady is transitioning into directing Adult and Alternative Education.

I had just asked him to reflect on his proudest moment as Assistant Superintendent, but his earlier response was no figure of speech. He was incapable of self-praise. His voice, accompanied by easy gestures, was husky and warm, and his bespectacled face beckoned me into the conversation while he rattled off the achievements of his coworkers, his employees; everyone but himself.

“I’ve seen good relationships, I’ve seen cooperative relationships, I’ve seen lots of involvement: parent involvement, community involvement; but [Piedmont High School] is really focused on partnerships… and [our partners] are lifting a lot with us,” Brady said.

Superintendent Constance Hubbard said his “heavy lifting” comes in the form of tireless work with construction to maintain and repair outdated facilities, facilities like the room we met in to the side of his office. It was a “disaster” of a room, really more of a basement, with cracked concrete floors and constantly buzzing of fluorescent lights. Paper plates, oranges, typewriters, boxes, files, textbooks, reading books, more books: it had the muddled vibe of a history classroom turned warehouse.

For Brady, who formerly taught both English and history and is “very literary and well-read” (according to Superintendent Constance Hubbard), this disarray seemed appropriate. In his 34-year career in education, he has had too many jobs for him to count and has worked in four school districts and a county office.

His first job at Piedmont was as the principal of Millenium High School. Simultaneously, he ran the high school diploma program for adult ed, which gives adults who did not graduate from high school the opportunity to complete the graduation requirements and receive a diploma.

Piedmont is the longest tenure he has held, and during his time here he has worked in numerous positions as both an administrator and educator. But he never loses sight of how it all started.

“I go back to how I got into this business. I was a classroom teacher for many many years,” Brady said. “So I know that the heart and soul of any educational operation is the connection between teachers and students.”

Now, as the director of adult education and alternative education, he hopes to continue to develop the facilities at the high school and middle school.

His main focus, though, is to restore adult ed to its prime, its “heyday,” he said. Before state cuts, the high school diploma program served 200-400 students per year. It now averages 12-25 annually.

Piedmont is part of a consortium of school districts that serve students outside of their hometowns. He wants to actively recruit students to rebuild the program, rather than wait for potential students to sign up.

“It’s not about remediation. It’s actually about acceleration,” Brady said.

Staying at Piedmont, Brady said, was part of an active choice that he made in his career to be more selective with where he worked.

“I wouldn’t change my experience for anywhere else. I mean working in Vallejo in a large, urban school district I learned so much, just about a lot of things,” Brady said. “But once I got here I realized that it’s a very unique community and school district, and that it is head and shoulders above anywhere else.”

He said part of what sets Piedmont apart is its coordination and the links from administrator to faculty to student.

“In lots of other places you get people who just want to do their own thing, their own pet project; they don’t see it in the grand scheme of things,” Brady said.

This type of partnership and bond between co-workers is critical to the school’s success, Brady said.

“When I got to Piedmont, what I discovered is that people here are willing to do what I call heavy lifting, which is, ‘These are the things that we want for our community and for our kids,’ and not just ‘How can we help you’ but ‘What can we do proactively with you,’” Brady said. “It’s really about partnerships, and that’s the fundamental difference that I’ve seen here.”

But, with all of his accomplishments and with every role that he plays in the functioning of PUSD, Brady brings it back to what he sees as the most important factor in a school: the bond between the teacher and the student.

“We sometimes get caught up in ‘Do we have enough technology?’ or ‘Do we have good enough facilities?’ But as long as we have we’ve got connections between students and teachers, that’s kind of where the magic happens,” Brady said. “I feel that that’s what makes this place great. That’s why people mortgage themselves to the hilt to give their kids the opportunity to come here. It’s really an honor to be a part of that.”