New Department of Education Commissioner Richard Crandall has a few weeks of work under his belt, and it has been overwhelming — the good kind of overwhelming, he said, the kind that has him buzzing with new ideas.

“More than 30 organizations have contacted us, saying ‘Hey, we want to meet with you,’” Crandall told The Colorado Statesman as he readied for a trip to the Platte Valley School District in Kersey.

Platte Valley is a rural Weld County district and the superintendent there is also the school bus diver, so Crandall’s visit had to be wrapped up by 3 p.m., when the superintendent had to drive students home.

The needs of districts like Platte Valley are a high priority for the State Board of Education, Crandall said — right at the top with assessment standards and school accountability.

Delivering quality education to rural districts is “challenging off the charts,” Crandall said. Finding highly qualified teachers is the biggest issue, but he thinks that is changing with the rewrite of the No Child City Left Behind federal policy, which in its new form shifts more power to the states.

“We all hope that our teachers have some kind of content expertise, but let’s be realistic. If I’ve got a district with 97 kids K-12, am I going to find a physics teacher? Probably not,” Crandall said. “But, say I have a great English teacher who happens to know basic physics and who can teach the introductory course. The law now allows that.”

Teachers may not have to be experts in the subjects they’re teaching, but they’re required nevertheless to be “highly effective” instructors on the subjects.

“That’s the big challenge,” Crandall said. “What does ‘highly effective’ mean?”

It’s a topic that will be debated at the Capitol this legislative session. There are at least two student-achievement bills currently on the docket.

Rep. Dave Young, D-Greeley, introduced HB 1016, aimed at establishing multiple measures of academic growth, and Sen. Vicki Marble, R-Fort Collins, introduced SB 5, which would eliminate ninth-grade statewide student testing.

Lawmakers are also considering how to expand access to broadband in rural stretches across the state, something Crandall said is a huge issue for the department. He said he plans to collaborate with other state departments so that they can help lawmakers help rural Colorado.

Crandall is no stranger to the legislative process. He served in the Arizona Legislature. He was a moderate Republican who helped pass a teacher evaluation law and supported the adoption of Common Core in the state.

“I understand the role of opportunity and responsibility in being a lawmaker. It’s funny, just today we were going over the primary list of people to meet with and I said, ‘OK, number one on that list is lawmakers.’ They are elected to look out for their constituents,” Crandall said. “Plus, if they pass a law, we have to abide by it. So, let’s make sure we’re on great terms with them.”

Just a couple of weeks into the legislative session, Crandall said he had met with around 10 lawmakers.

“Man, they are passionate,” he said. “They don’t want to do just big things; they want to do huge things. And they’re like ‘Can you help us?’ It’s fun being on this side.”

There’s a key difference between the legislatures in Arizona and Colorado, he said.

“I had a couple lawmakers call me the other day and they said ‘We’d like to meet with you.’ I said, ’No problem, I’ll be right over to your office.’ They said ‘No, no, we’re going to come over to your office.’ It actually caught me by surprise for a moment because in Arizona (everyone) always came to the Legislature. I thought, ‘Am I in trouble on my first day?’ But it was just a couple of lawmakers that had some big ideas for education. It was a rush.”

Crandall said that kind of passion is a major perk of the job. It’s the reason he took it.

“Colorado has a (reputation) nationally for its very high emphasis on education,” he said. “Especially higher ed. There have been many governors over many years that have put a focus on higher ed and, when you have that focus, it just trickles down.”

At a meeting with members of the Colorado School Board association the night before our interview, Crandall said the room was buzzing with ideas. People were drafting proposals together on the back of scratch paper.

“People come here, they want to be educated, they want their kids to go to great schools,” he said.

Crandall still has a few children of his own who will be attending high school in Denver.

He chose the commissioner job over an opportunity to head back to Wyoming, where he was the chief of schools. That job was more cleanup, he said.

“It was ‘Hey, can you come in and just stabilize things?’ Colorado is different. You come in and there are a bunch of rockstars. They have all these things they want to try and do at the Department of Education.”

— kara@coloradostatesman