New Haines Borough School Superintendent Anthony Habra said disagreement with a board that kept “Redskins” as its school mascot factored into leaving his last job as superintendent in Paw Paw, Mich., a two-hour drive from his boyhood home of East Lansing.

Indigenous people there wanted the name removed and a separate group was willing to pay for the change, but the name had been around 100 years. “They still have that name. That’s where the difference is. That was part of my decision to leave,” Habra said in a recent interview.

Habra, 49, led Paw Paw Public Schools for three years, earning $122,000 annually. The district has six buildings, 2,300 students and a $20 million budget. On taking the job in 2013, he had to present a 5 percent budget cut in less than a month.

“Like any district, when you’re cutting now, you’re cutting personnel, because that’s all there is. You really can’t cut fuel or how much electricity costs,” Habra said.

Habra said that district was too big. “I was involved in politics. I wasn’t dealing with kids anymore. I could only get into (school) buildings a couple days a week. I was told I had to be in the office more, but I’m not an office kind of guy.”

Haines is a career turn, Habra said, not a mid-life crisis. He worked his way up from special education teacher, counselor and principal. “(Before Paw Paw) I’d had some support from some people who were coaching me. I had a mentor or two who said, ‘You need to get into a bigger district.’ I’m not saying they were wrong. I went and tried it.”

He and his wife of 19 years have three teenage children who will be enrolled with the district. They bought a house here a few months ago and Habra hosts a jazz show on KHNS.

Habra, who also has worked in Arizona and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, applied at Mount Edgecumbe and some other Alaska districts. “Haines was our first choice, because of the arts. My kids are all very into the arts. I love jazz. Very few smaller districts hold the level of arts that Haines does.”

“I do want to be here. There was a time I was going up the career ladder. The question is where do I want to end up. This move is for us. I’m hoping this is my destination and that I’ll finish my career here.”

He outlined his approach to the position. “The first year on the job is about learning it. The second is about consolidation and the third year is about innovation,” Habra said. “Then you need five years after that to see if your innovations are working and tweaking things.”

He said he’s not daunted by budget cuts that some Haines Borough school board members say may be inevitable, as the district is running about a $400,000 deficit. “Education is being cut everywhere. Alaska is late to the game a little bit. I’ve never had to not cut budgets.”

Learning where to cut takes time, he said. “If you really learn about a place, you can figure out how to make cuts as far away from students as possible and as painless as possible.”

Laying people off for lack of funds is the hardest part of a superintendent’s job, he said. “That’s career death or at least employment death. I lose a lot of sleep over those decisions.”

Habra deflected a question about where the district could improve. “This district’s already a four-star district. There are not a whole lot of districts at that level. I’m not anticipating anything needing to be done right away. My goal at this point is meeting people,” including spending an hour with each district employee.

He said he would present his findings to the school board.

Habra expressed criticism of a federal push aimed at math and reading that overlooked the value of other programs. He also was critical of tests as gauges of teacher or student achievement, under the federal No Child Left Behind program.

“The teachers who are your best teachers are the ones you want to put with the kids who are struggling the most. But those teachers, as reflected by test scores, seem to be the ones who aren’t doing so well. So you have teachers not wanting to put their jobs at risk by teaching the kids who need the most help.”

Student testing, he said, is a “great way to dipstick to find out what still needs to be taught… It’s not particularly valuable to determine if somebody is a good teacher or not. It’s way more complex than that.”

Habra also has been speaking to residents and welcomes visitors. “My door is open. People can walk right on in.”

Habra said he hopes to give a state-of-the-district address in April.