San Mateo County honors superintendent Nancy Magee with special day as she retires after three decades in education
San Mateo County, California – The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors has officially honored County Superintendent of Schools Nancy Magee as she gets ready to retire after more than 30 years in public education. To recognize her lengthy career and dedication to students in the area, supervisors passed a proclamation creating a day in her name. The day will celebrate her leadership and lasting contributions to education in the county.
In 2018, Magee was first chosen to be the San Mateo County Superintendent of Schools. She was in charge of the San Mateo County Office of Education for a while, and her main goals were to improve early learning, teach kids about the environment, and keep them safe and healthy. Supervisors applauded her for being able to bring together school districts, county agencies, and community partners to work on problems that local schools were having.
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Supervisor Jackie Speier, who worked with Supervisor Lisa Gauthier to get the proclamation passed, noted that Magee always told kids to believe in their abilities. Speier’s message to young people all around the county was simple but powerful: “Yes, you can.” Magee thanked the board for the recognition at the meeting on Zoom. She stressed that many of the county’s successes were due to good teamwork.
Magee’s major goal remained to keep schools secure. As head of San Mateo County’s Coalition for Safe Schools and Communities, she helped create emergency response plans, a toolkit for preventing suicide, and a system for assessing threats to students that is currently used in all 23 school districts in the county. Officials indicated that those steps had made people more ready and helped stop potential disasters.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, Magee also played a vital role by helping school districts switch to distance learning and then back to in-person classes. The San Mateo County School Boards Association gave her the Pillar of the County Award and the Association of California School Administrators’ Region 5 gave her the Superintendent of the Year award for her leadership during that time.
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Magee also worked on The Big Lift, a countywide literacy program that intended to improve reading skills in third graders, during her career. She later backed the United for Youth Vision 2030 Blueprint, a plan to work together to improve mental health services for young people across the county.
Supervisors said that Magee was a leader who worked well with others and was always available. They also said that she always put students at the heart of her work. A 4-0 vote approved the proclamation recognizing her career.
