Schwartz, Sisil named to top school administrative posts
Board continues to promote from within
From left: Gail Hanhart McIntyre, Madera County School Superintendent Cecelia Massetti and Cathy Lopes. McIntyre and her husband, Ed, a school board trustee, played hosts at a reception in their home on July 27 for new MUSD Superintendent Todd Lile and other school officials and their families.
Madera Unified School District trustees continued to show support for local talent by naming two long-time Maderans to the district’s highest administrative positions, just below Superintendent Todd Lile in the chain of command.
In action taken at their July 25 board meeting, trustees adopted the new organizational chart proposed by Lile, which moved Assistant Superintendent Sandon Schwartz to the newly created position of deputy superintendent and director of college and career readiness, and Sheryl Sisil to assistant superintendent of educational services.
Schwartz and Sisil now join Lile to form a triumvirate of life-long Maderans who will run the day-to-day business of Madera Unified. All three live in Madera.
Schwartz will be responsible for the district’s maintenance, operations, and transportation departments.
Sisil will oversee all aspects of the district’s educational programs.
Sandon Schwartz
Schwartz was born in 1973 in Madera Community Hospital to Bill and Patricia Schwartz and was reared by his parents, both teachers in Madera, to appreciate his family’s historic connections with Madera.
He attended elementary school at John Adams and went on to graduate as valedictorian from Thomas Jefferson Junior High School. In 1991, he graduated third in his class at Madera High.
When it came time to decide on college, Schwartz enrolled at Cal Poly, San Luis Obisbo. After two academic quarters on the Coast, he returned home and enrolled at Fresno State, where he majored in business finance.
Schwartz began his teaching career in 1997, conducting business classes at what was then Madera High School, South Campus.
In 2004, he was appointed vice principal at Martin Luther King Middle School. The next year he moved to Washington School as vice principal and two years later he moved to Pershing School as principal.
Four years later, Schwartz was sent to Madera South High School as principal. In January 2014, Madera Unified moved him to the district office to take the position of assistant superintendent for administrative and support services.
Sheryl Sisil
Sisil is the daughter of Gary and Linda Geist. Her father was a long-time Madera business owner, and her mother was employed at Baltimore Aircoil for 31 years. Having worked in her father’s manufacturing shop, Sisil knows how to weld, drive a truck and trailer, and is at home on a tractor.
Sisil’s husband, Tim Sisil, is auctioneer and livestock field representative for Turlock Livestock Auction Yard. The Sisils live in Madera with their three children.
Sheryl Sisil attended Millview Elementary, Thomas Jefferson Middle School, and Madera High School, graduating in 1992. She earned a bachelor of science degree and teaching credential in agricultural education at Fresno State and her administrative services credential at Fresno Pacific University.
She earned her Master of Education from Concordia University.
Sisil began her teaching career in 2004 as an agriculture teacher with Madera Unified. She served as vice principal at Madera South High School and in 2014 was named the district’s director of college and career readiness.
It was her performance in this position that has brought Sisil to the attention of the educational community throughout the state. As she led MUSD into the burgeoning Career Pathways Movement, she declared that a new day had dawned in Madera, one that she likens to moving from the “outhouse to the penthouse.”
Six directors and seven coordinators of various educational programs report directly to Sisil.
