Matthew Neighbors, recently promoted to Galveston ISD’s superintendent after an incident with former superintendent, discussed his thoughts and plans for the community and his surprise at his sudden promotion.

Neighbors, Galveston ISD’s well-respected superintendent, claims the sudden promotion came as a shock. “I had been in training to be superintendent and working on my doctorate. [Becoming] superintendent has been a long-term goal, but [it] happened sooner than I expected.”

During his transition from assistant principal to superintendent, Neighbors stated “I owe a lot of [my] development as a teacher and a leader to GISD. It was really exciting to sort of see my journey come full circle, and exciting that that was able to occur here in Galveston.”

Since 2004, Neighbors has remained a loyal and active educator in the GISD community. He started his journey as a teacher at Ball High School, teaching World History and World Geography for 17 years, then he made the transition from teacher to instructional coach, and from then on to be assistant principal at Austin Middle School.

Because of his many years of expertise and experience in different departments, Neighbors claims “I’ve seen things in the district from a lot of different perspectives. “I’ve seen it from the side of a teacher for a long time, but then I was able to be an instructional coach, [and] an assistant principal, so I do think that it helps just having seen how the district operates from a lot of different levels, and hopefully [I] can use that knowledge to help make things better. I still think about problems and think about issues and think about solutions through the lens of a teacher.”

Neighbors’ first goal is to make GISD an “exciting place to learn, and a rewarding place to work. I want students to be able to enter with a promise and leave with a purpose; that every student who comes into GISD is able to take advantage of the many opportunities that we have.”

Neighbors had one last word to the students and staff of GISD; “So I think that for students, this is a phenomenal place to be. It offers you a lot of opportunities that other communities don’t offer, and I hope that we can continue to reinforce that message to families and students on the island, so that they can be as excited about going to school here as we are to teach and lead.”