COLUMBUS — Ohio’s Superintendent of Public Instruction will step down on Sept. 24. Reflecting on his time at the Ohio Department of Education, he said he knew this would be the right time to retire.
Paolo DeMaria said a letter from the retirement system jumpstarted it all.
“You think about where am I in my career. What have I done? I started having those thoughts at the end of 2020, sort of looking at and I thought well, wait a minute, we’re in the middle (of a) pandemic. We’re just about to start the budget process so I thought to myself, well let’s see the pandemic through.”
So, he did.
Continuing work with the state legislature on school funding and report card reform, DeMaria was finally able to see those things reach a resolution after years of work.
When that happened, he realized that it was a signal that he could go.
“I thought to myself things are in a really good place to support a transition and leadership for this organization,” he said.
While those were major accomplishments he saw come to pass during his time at the department of education, there are a number of other things he’s most proud of.
That includes:
- The strategic plan
- Establishing work-based learning opportunities for students through business partnerships
- The whole child framework
- Developing social-emotional learning standards
- Literacy
- School-based healthcare
While every day has not been smooth sailing, especially when it came to the community school sector, he is glad that they got through the challenges surrounding it.
“We are now in a place where the community-school sector is stronger, it’s better-funded again thanks to some changes made in the legislative process, it’s, I think, more well regarded,” he said.
Through the lows and highs, DeMaria said when he leaves he will miss the people he’s worked with. He’ll especially miss the kids he’s interacted with while traveling the state, he said.
Thinking about lasting impressions, DeMaria has already begun to leave a legacy; but ultimately the legacy for the people he’ll leave behind is “a belief in the work that we do, have a sense of pride and also a sense of forward lookingness to it, that we can keep things going and do good things,” he said.
For now, DeMaria plans to find something that brings him joy most likely in the education field after retiring.
