Curt Baker:  

Curt Baker is Superintendent of the Moon Area School District ("MASD"), a 3,700 student, high-performing school system in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Upon his arrival in November 2013, the School Board extended a significant challenge to Curt - and by transference, to every Moon Area School District employee: "œAssure that every child achieves his or her full potential, and, in the process, move the School District from among the top 10% in Pennsylvania to among the top 1%. Then stay there." Accordingly, Mr. Baker has committed his Superintendency to transforming MASD from "œexcellent" to "œtruly extraordinary." Before his Moon landing, Curt was Deputy Superintendent for Roanoke City Public Schools ("RCPS"), a primarily urban school district located at the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. RCPS provides instruction for approximately 13,000 students, Pre-K through Grade 12. During his nearly seven years in Virginia, Curt's scope of responsibility included finance, facilities, technology, transportation, food services, athletics/student life, payroll, purchasing, warehouse, human resources, and student services. The hallmark of Curt's work in Roanoke was the effective stewardship of public resources. By staying true to the philosophy that financial decision making should be guided by the concept of: "œstudents first, employees next, and everything else a distant third," RCPS successfully improved its graduation rate by more than 20 percentage points while at the same time increasing its fund balance by $29 million. Prior to joining RCPS, Curt was the Chief Financial Officer for the School District of Lancaster ("œSDoL"), the second oldest school system in Pennsylvania. When Curt joined the District, SDoL had a negative fund balance and had operated in the red for five of the previo...Expand for more