New superintendent of Corcoran Unified School District brings 2 decades of experience

CORCORAN, Calif. (KFSN) -- There's a new leader of the Corcoran Unified School District.

Andre Pecina comes from a father who was an educator for 39 years.

He's also worked in education for more than two decades.

He taught for 10 years and then shifted to administration.

"I wanted to figure out, how could I change the conditions for students to be even more successful. Because I was seeing a lot of gaps," Pecina said.

After a decade working in multiple school districts, including Fresno and Visalia Unified, he's now about a month into his newest role as superintendent of the Corcoran Unified School District.

Born and raised in Sanger, Pecina says he was drawn to Corcoran.

"The community really wrapped around the schools, and there was a great support for that, and I experienced the same thing growing up," Pecina said.

The district has about 3,300 students.

Pecina has been on the job for about five weeks and has spent most of his time connecting with staff and students.

"The first 30 days was really around listening and learning," Pecina said.

He says through his listening sessions, he's identified areas of improvement, such as communication disconnect between the six schools, an abundance of tests that students are required to take and room for improvement when it comes to safety.

Pecina says the district is actively working on solutions to address those issues.

"There's going to be a small work team that's going to work on identifying three to five priorities for next year to begin to work on while we begin to develop the strategic plan," Pecina said.

He says on a positive note, he knows the district is in a healthy financial place and facilities have been well maintained.

He says his goal is to continue to keep an open line of communication with the staff, students and the community about what needs to change to make them most successful as they move forward.

"It's really about taking the time to learn and then adjust if we need to," Pecina said.

Pecina plans to present his findings from his listening sessions to the school board next week.

From there, they'll come up with a few key focuses as they head into the next school year.

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