Lafayette School Superintendent Leaving For New Job

Lafayette School District Superintendent Fred Brill is heading to the other side of the East Bay hills.

The San Lorenzo Unified School District board members have hired Brill as their new superintendent. He starts his new job on Oct. 7.

Brill will be replacing Superintendent Dennis Byas, who is retiring at the end of the month after being with the school district for six years.

Brill has been the superintendent of the Lafayette School District since 2008. He oversees 3,400 elementary and middle school students in Lafayette.

According to an article in the Contra Costa Times, San Lorenzo’s diversity and size was appealing to Brill — who is a Chicago native and Berkeley resident.

"It's not a big monster bureaucratic district, and it's not a teeny tiny district. It's a good size for efficiency and intimacy and connectedness, which is important," Brill told the Times. "I bring a sense of urgency in supporting the kids so that they have the opportunities to go to college and be successful in a career, and that is our job."

Brill has also been an area superintendent for Oakland Unified School District and an assistant principal and principal for Lafayette’s Stanley Middle School. He was also an English and history teacher at Albany High School.

Before that, he started his career working with troubled youth at the Oakland-based Seneca Center. In 1990, he was apart of the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program in former Czechoslovakia, says the Contra Costa Times.

The San Lorenzo school board was looking at 17 applicants for superintendent.

“We were looking for someone willing to work and learn the community and learn our vision," San Lorenzo School Board President Norman Fobert told the Times. "He just seemed to fit the bill."