Last School Bells Ring for Retiring Superintendents : Education: The chiefs of the Simi and Conejo Valley districts both step down this week.

Robert Purvis thought about a career in accounting and briefly worked as a salesman, but he decided on education because he could not think of anything more important than teaching children.

“If you’re sick, maybe medicine is more important,” said Purvis, superintendent of the Simi Valley Unified School District. “If somebody’s breaking into your house, a policeman is. But 24 hours a day, nothing is more important than education.”

William Seaver wanted to farm, but his family’s Hayward ranch was sold while he served in the Korean War. Instead, he started teaching high school agriculture and never looked back.

“If I’ve done anything to make education stronger in this district, or to prepare students to be better citizens, there’s nothing more I could ask for,” said Seaver, superintendent of the Conejo Valley Unified School District.

On Wednesday, both men will step down from their respective roles after careers in education spanning more than three decades each.

Purvis, 59, is hesitant to use the word retirement.

“I’m not really retiring. I’m just going to do something else,” said Purvis, who led Ventura County’s largest school district for nearly three years.

But Seaver, 63, makes no bones about his plans to unwind, travel and enjoy his grandchildren after spending 37 years as a teacher, counselor, principal, personnel director and superintendent in Oxnard and Thousand Oaks.

“My health is still good. There ought to be a few days to do a few things other than cut budgets,” Seaver said, referring to painful spending cutbacks in the 17,700-student district during four of his six years at the helm.

As they prepared to leave, both men looked back fondly on their years in education and shared what they have learned about life from the teaching profession.

“The key to success is motivation,” Seaver said. “If you take a child who wants to achieve a goal and wants to work at it, I’d bet on him achieving that goal, even over someone who has more innate intelligence but isn’t focused on anything.”

Purvis, talkative and energetic, said enthusiasm and a positive attitude have helped him to succeed where others might fail.

“Things tend to go pretty well for me even when they’re not,” Purvis said, laughing.

Frequently credited with boosting employee morale through his open-door policy, Purvis said he achieved the top two objectives of the school board: to lower class sizes and improve the labor-management relationship.

“I placed a high priority on the product, and that’s what happens in the classroom,” Purvis said.

By cutting administrative positions, the 18,000-student district has added 53 teachers during his reign, Purvis said. And surveys indicate the district’s 825 teachers and 1,200 other employees are satisfied with their jobs, he said.

“When you talk to parents, what they want more than anything else are teachers who are happy and highly motivated with a focus on their job and not feeling angry at the district about anything,” Purvis said.

After working as a teacher and principal in middle and elementary schools, the Bakersfield native first became a superintendent 20 years ago. He worked in San Diego and Orange counties and in Chico before arriving in Simi Valley.

After a six-month vacation that will include a bicycle trip through the fall colors of Vermont, Purvis hopes to teach school finance at the university level in addition to whatever else comes along, he said.

“I’m excited about the next five years and curious about what’s going to happen to me next,” Purvis said.

After conducting hundreds of school board meetings and attending at least 1,000, Seaver shares Purvis’ excitement, and not just for the cruise to Alaska that he and his wife plan to take beginning this week.

“I’m looking forward to reading in the newspaper about what happens at board meetings in the future,” Seaver told school board members at his final meeting last Thursday.

Seaver took his first teaching job at Oxnard High School in 1956 and became a counselor at Thousand Oaks High School when it opened six years later. His favorite job began in 1972, when he became principal at Thousand Oaks, he said.

“I thought I could have a greater impact on more kids as a principal and still be close enough to see them, talk to them, go to sports games,” Seaver said. “It’s the most demanding job I’ve ever had. It makes you get old in a hurry.”

Being a superintendent is a lonely job, Seaver said. But he said he’s always had the option to visit a school and talk with children when he’s feeling tired.

“The kids are what I’ll miss the most,” Seaver said.

Both men agreed that the nature of education has changed in recent years as more children are coming from single-parent or alcoholic homes at the same time that they must be prepared to enter a more diverse and complex society.

“It’s much easier to teach a child who’s rested and eaten breakfast than the child who’s up all night with people fighting and who comes to school with an empty stomach,” Purvis said.

Despite growing challenges, they said, the educational system is doing a better job than many people realize.

“Our products--our people--go into thousands of different jobs and professions,” Seaver said. “We’ve got to give them a background so they can succeed when we don’t even know what they’re going to do.”

It isn’t always easy to predict which students will succeed, although some are obvious leaders, Seaver said. Given that some children will surpass expectations, the role of public schools is to give everyone a chance, he said.

“I object to putting kids in categories,” Seaver said. “We should make sure each kid gets a chance to do as much with his or her potential as we can.”

Maintaining the mission of public schools with less money is the challenge facing their successors, Seaver and Purvis said. Simi Valley schools have avoided major cutbacks, but state funding shortfalls have squeezed Thousand Oaks schools because teachers were locked into a three-year pay raise.

“If I were hiring a school administrator, I’d be looking for somebody with strong interpersonal skills and good communication but most of all knowledge of a budget because without that you’re going to die on the job,” Purvis said.

Purvis has praised the board’s selection of Assistant Supt. Mary Beth Wolford, the district’s second-in-command, to assume the top job. Thousand Oaks school officials are expected to announce a replacement next week.

“Dismantling a lot of programs that were good for kids has been one of the hardest aspects of this job,” Seaver said. “The sad part is I don’t see it changing for a couple of years or more.”