Thomas J. Wilczek

After 36 years as an educator and six of those as Superintendent of New Kensington-Arnold School District, Thomas J. Wilczek is as passionate and enthusiastic about education and his school system as the day he started. A native of Upper Burrell Township and graduate of the former Ken High, he attended Edinboro University to earn an undergraduate degree in Arts in 1966. His teaching career began the same year at Arnold High School where he taught art and remained through 1992.

In his early years teaching, he was instrumental in opening Oakridge Academy, owned his own business, and illustrated two locally written children's books. Involved with Oakridge for a time, he was a director and taught courses including adult education.

During that time Valley High School asked Mr. Wilczek to take the position as their Assistant Principal. He replied, that he loved teaching, and wanted to continue, but accepted the position. Along the way he earned a Masters in Art with a major in Three Dimensional Design from the University of Pittsburgh. Before long, the Principal left and Mr. Wilczek took over as Acting Principal. Through several more administrative events, Mr. Wilczek became Acting Superintendent. Fortunately, he was prepared by having taken educator administrative courses at the University of Pittsburgh. He later completed his Superintendence Certificate. Needless to say, he still desired to return to teaching but the school board elected him as permanent Superintendent in 1996.

Although his first love of teaching art remains, he has given himself heartily to being an excellent administrator. Even though many experts recommend not electing a Superintendent from their own district because of familiarity, that advice has not proven to be a handicap for Mr. Wilczek. In fact, he believes it has been the opposite. Not only does he oversee 2,650-student population, 161 teachers and support staff for a district that has an annual budget of $23,000,000, his personal knowledge of the personnel and community has led to developing a harmonious school system amidst diversity and community change. He is very proud to have achieved balance between the many different elements of the community through integrating children from all neighborhoods by the fourth grade so they grow up together while in school. He is also appreciative of the supportive core of people, whose community roots extend back for many generations.

In the midst of bringing balance to the school system, Mr. Wilczek also has overseen a major building and renovation project to six of the seven school buildings. Five have been comprehensively renovated, four had additions and one new school was built. Even all this construction remained in the hands of local people; the principal architect for the school district was once a student of Mr. Wilczek.

Mr. Wilczek is also very proud of the district's emphasis on technology. A major teleconferencing center with over a 100 participants is located in the Fort Crawford School. With a satellite downlink and a 15-foot screen, students visit other classrooms around the country and take virtual field trips all over the world. Even State Representative John Pallone has conferences with the district through teleconferencing. This center is open to the community and for rent by area corporations. Also, every teacher has a computer; there are five computer labs in the high school, two in the middle school, two in the Intermediate school and wireless in the elementary schools. A complete media center is located in the middle school, and the high school has a television studio.

And one of the more amazing and probably not well-known facts about the New Kensington-Arnold School District is their language department. The district offers Japanese, Russian, Spanish and French language courses!

Most of all, Mr. Wilczek is proud of the district's professional staff. Despite a great deal of recent retirements, he is delighted and impressed with the many new teachers who come well prepared to transfer knowledge in a practical way. He is confident that his educational philosophy of every student receiving the opportunity to achieve a level of success will be fulfilled.