ACSA’s Superintendent of the Year Grant Bennett believes the district has a moral obligation to equip students for college, career and lifelong achievement.
Bennett committed to student achievement
October 28, 2024
Name: Grant Bennett
Award: Superintendent of the Year
Title: Superintendent, Perris Union High School District
ACSA highlights: ACSA Representative to WASC, 2011-present; ACSA Region 19 Delegate, 2004-2008, 2012-2015, 2018-2023; State Board Member, 2020-2023; Awards Committee Member, 2020-2023; ACSA Region 19 Charter Delegate, 2013-2016; Region 19 President, 2018-2019; WRCASM President, 2015-2017.
Some say Grant Bennett is everywhere, all at once, in his community of Perris.
You’ll see him walking classrooms, attending school functions and chamber of commerce events, and cheering at sporting events — home and away. You may even see him popping into a math class to teach a lesson.
At each appearance he is present and engaged, showing his deep commitment to educational quality and student achievement — a commitment that has earned him recognition as ACSA’s 2024 Superintendent of the Year.
A fixture in Perris Union HSD for the last 30 years, Bennett started working in the district as a math teacher in 1993. He worked his way from site administrator to the district office, eventually becoming superintendent in 2016.
He has both articulated and personified the district’s belief that it has a moral obligation to equip students for college, career and lifelong achievement — a vision that has resulted in outstanding academic growth for his district.
A leader in K-12 public education accreditation, Bennett has served as ACSA’s representative on the Western Association of Schools and Colleges since 2011 and has led various committees for the association serving California, Hawaii and East Asia. His extensive service includes several leadership roles in ACSA, including as a state board member from 2020-23.
He has developed systems of support that create nurturing, safe, and inclusive learning environments for students. In 2022-23, when students were struggling with unprecedented trauma and anxiety following the COVID-19 pandemic, Bennett said, “We can do better.” He immediately collaborated with a wide variety of stakeholders to ensure the individual needs of all students were being met. The district created student wellness centers, hired social workers and added an additional counselor at every campus. He also created the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Department that ensures the district’s Equity Policy is fulfilled.
At the heart of each of these district initiatives is care. It’s a word woven into the district mission statement several times.
“That is not by chance. It is there with great intentionality because Grant Bennett leads with caring and kindness,” said Robert Brough, assistant superintendent of Education Services in Perris UHSD. “He exemplifies it in every decision he makes.”
What’s your favorite book or quote on leadership?
My favorite quote on leadership comes from basketball coach Jim Valvano at the 1993 ESPY Awards. With his body riddled with cancer, he delivered an impassioned speech, and my favorite quote from the speech was, “There are three things that we should do every day of our lives. Number one is to laugh. Number two is think. Number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears. Think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry every day. That’s a heck of a day.”
What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
It was early in my principal career when Perris High was deemed an under-performing school, and we had to make some complex changes. It was even more difficult because I had moved from teacher to assistant principal to principal in 14 months, all at Perris High. We all know that change is never easy, but most staff jumped on board to move the school forward. However, some veteran outliers didn’t want to fall in line. I struggled to get them going until a veteran teacher everyone respected came to me and said, “Keep doing the things you know are good for our students and ignore those idiots.” That was a turning point for me, and we were able to move Perris High forward.
What’s your best strategy for work-life balance?
This is an area that I have always struggled with as an administrator. I have three kids who played soccer from the age of 5-18, and I coached them throughout. By coaching them, I knew I would have to be off campus or out of the office. I let my assistant principals or assistant superintendents know I would be out on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:30 p.m. to get to practices. I knew that if I didn’t put things on my schedule, I would stay at work and have missed time with my kids. Even now, as the superintendent, I leave the office to watch my two oldest kids coach the Varsity Girls’ Soccer Team at one of my schools, Liberty High School. I even go in the score booth, run the clock and keep score.
What are some life hacks that you would recommend for a new administrator?
The two most important things for new administrators is to put a lot of effort into building relationships with their staff. The staff will see right through if your efforts are not authentic. They never care how much you know until they know how much you care. The book “The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace” is a great place to start.
The second thing for new administrators is to “go slow to go fast.” Too often, they want to jump in with good intentions and change the world. Remember that unless it is a safety issue, it didn’t happen overnight and can’t be fixed overnight. Empower your people to help with solutions; use the experts in your building.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
Most people do not know my story. Upon graduating from high school, I went to USC looking to become a dentist. However, after one semester, I realized I was not ready for college and dropped out. I worked in a restaurant my wife’s family owned for several years. After about four years, I realized I wanted more, so I started back to school at Cypress College and then transferred to Cal State Long Beach. I wanted to teach and dreamed of teaching mathematics at the high school level. I completed the BA in mathematics and the full teacher preparation in less than five years while working full-time in the family restaurant.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve overcome to get where you are?
The biggest challenge I had to overcome was being patient. I was passed over a couple of times for a position I thought I was ready for at the time. At those times, I could have become a malcontent and sulked about not getting the position. However, I decided to keep my head down and do my job to the best of my ability. I share with administrators two things I have used to keep me going during those tough times. One is that people are watching to see how you react to not getting a new position, and secondly, sometimes the best jobs are the ones you do not get.
What are you most proud of?
I am most proud of what we have done for Perris High. The school opened in 1888 and moved to its current location in 1961. The campus was showing its age, and during the last 12 years, we have replaced every classroom. The school never had an actual theater, more of a gym-a-cafe-torium. Now, they have a 500-seat, state-of-the-art performance center. We have also added CTE classrooms for auto, culinary arts and robotics. In addition, a massive Agricultural Science Center was constructed, which includes six lab classrooms, a floral classroom, an agricultural mechanics building for welding, a woodshop, and a fabrication lab. A new pool has been constructed to replace their old pool that was falling apart. I have said all along that the kids in Perris deserve a school just as nice as the ones we have built in the southern part of our district.
A fixture in Perris Union HSD for the last 30 years, Grant Bennett started working in the district as a math teacher in 1993.
You’ll see Grant Bennett walking classrooms, attending school functions and chamber of commerce events, and cheering at sporting events.
In 2022-23, when students were struggling with unprecedented trauma and anxiety following the COVID-19 pandemic, Bennett said, “We can do better.”