Brandon Bringhust
Courtesy Cassie Fisher Photography
There are opportunities to help the community raise expectations for student achievement, Brandon Bringhurst said. Anything from advances in technology to celebrating cultural shifts can be a part of that.
Bringhurst is principal at Reno’s Marce Herz Middle School through the end of the year but joins the Carson City School District as chief academic officer July 1.
“I would say we try to balance both having really high expectations for ourselves as educators as well as for our students and then providing the support that you need in order to meet those expectations,” he said.
Bringhurst will replace Tasha Fuson, associate superintendent of educational services, who will retire at the end of June. Although the title has been updated, the role’s functions remain the same as a part of the superintendent’s executive team. Bringhurst will provide oversight of CCSD’s curriculum, instruction, assessment and accountability.
“I think it’s a question of building upon, not changing, those directions,” he said. “It’s laid around the professional learning communities’ work, proficiency scales that have been worked on. And I think as everybody becomes more familiar with what the expectations are, really we're trying to get students to accomplish at each grade level throughout the system, and then providing the training and support in order to meet those expectations.”
Before Herz opened in August 2020, he was principal of WCSD’s Mendive Middle School and assistant principal at Reed High School and came from previous administrative roles in Killeen, Texas.
“I believe strongly in professional development,” he said. “When the leaders and the teachers are better at what we do, we're going to see better results from the students as well. Improving math scores after a pandemic that shut down schools and impacted students and families academically, socially and emotionally is a hurdle.”
He also said it’s important to embrace tools available to schools and students, such as artificial intelligence, and to inform them on best practices. Concerns about when calculators first became standard issue in class eventually were quashed, he said.
“When the Internet first became viable, right, it was all these kids who are going to just plagiarize and cheat on all of this stuff, and then we soon realized, well, actually, it's changed what we need to do in education … and we can leverage this tool of the Internet,” he said.
Superintendent Andrew Feuling said Bringhurst’s experience will serve the district’s students by strengthening their opportunities.
“It’s clearly big shoes to fill with Tasha leaving … and so you know, there will be a learning curve for Brandon, certainly, with some of that,” Feuling said.
“But in terms of having that strong foundation in instruction and leadership in a building and being able to support and mentor our principals and just any of our school administrators, I don't know that we could have someone better in coming into this role and helping continue to lead the district in the right direction and make sure our kids have the best of what we can offer.”