Dr. Arthur Unobskey was nominated on March 26 to be the Wayland Public School’s new superintendent. He will replace retiring Superintendent Paul Stein. Upon hearing the announcement, many members of the Wayland community began to wonder who Unobskey is, what his background is, and what the change in administration will mean for Wayland’s school system and students.

According to the Wayland Public School website, Arthur Unobskey started his teaching career in 1991 in Baltimore, Maryland. He worked in Baltimore until 1993, when he moved to Massachusetts to work at Graham and Parks School, a public elementary school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He worked there from 1993 to 1995. After that, he took various teaching and administrative jobs around the state, including in Lincoln-Sudbury, Boston, Roxbury, and Concord school districts. He was most recently Assistant Superintendent of Gloucester Public Schools in 2015. Unobskey earned his bachelor’s degree at Yale University in 1989, his master’s degree in teaching at Brown University in 1991 and his doctorate in mathematics instruction at Boston College in 2009.

As assistant superintendent in Gloucester, Unobskey oversaw the teachers in the district. He worked with teachers to develop new curriculum in multiple subjects, including math, science and ESL. He also implemented an outreach initiative for ESL learners and parents. Unobskey created and implemented a district-wide teacher professional development program and a district-wide data management program for formative assessments. He was also in charge of obtaining all funding for grants at the local, state and federal level.

Unobskey discussed some of the plans he has for Wayland, including his desire to look into the importance of standardized testing in the curriculum, his desire to expand student-on-student communication within the community and his desire for Wayland students to see him as someone to whom they can talk if they want a change.

“If there was a need out there or [a] frustration, my door would be open; you’d have a vehicle to not only address what’s wrong but see what we can get working. I think my openness and the enjoyment I take in talking with students is why you’d want me.”

Unobskey also mentioned his desire to help all three kinds of Wayland students. He wants to keep challenging advanced students, helping to support students who fall behind, and keeping average students challenged in their own standard.

Unobskey also mentioned that he intends to be more open regarding snow days, especially by calling them the night before so that students can sleep in without worrying about waking up.

“We’ve gotten better and better at predicting the weather, and the ability to call something the day before is a huge advantage for families, especially for families with younger kids, and planning work, and childcare. I would think we’d want to take advantage of that opportunity. Unobskey said. “I know [waiting to see in the morning] [is] extremely frustrating for the students, not being able to go to bed knowing.”

See WSPN’s article about the process by which Unobskey was nominated and a view on the other former candidates.