When Scott McLean thinks about his career in education and the twists and turns it’s taken, the one word he always comes back to is timing.
His decision to attend a college football game in September 1986 was fortuitous timing because it’s where he ran into Susan Krejci, who 11 months later would become Susan McLean. His decision to move to Abilene and work for Abilene ISD in June 2010 was perfect timing because it allowed him and Susan to keep their entire family in one city. And his decision to retire this month after 29 years in public education comes at the right time to be able to enjoy time with his wife (also retiring after 24 years as a teacher, including the last 14 as a kindergarten teacher at Alcorta Elementary School), their children and grandchildren, as well as their parents.
McLean graduated from Abilene Christian University in 1985 with a degree in Accounting. He worked in accounting firms for a few years before working at the Angleton Independent School District, working his way up to Assistant Superintendent of Operations. While living in Austin and working as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), he and an ACU friend drove to San Marcos one Saturday afternoon to watch ACU play Southwest Texas State in a Lone Star Conference football game.
He and Susan had met while at ACU, but there was no inkling of a future romance between the two. That afternoon at Southwest Texas State, they ran into each other again, and the rest is history.
“I had no idea she was going to be at the game,” McLean said. “She was a year behind me at ACU, and I was in (ACU social club) Sub-T 16, along with her brother. So we all knew her as
‘Krejci’s Sister.’ Anyway, we talked at the game, and I ended up stalking her from that point on. We were engaged by February and married in August 1987.”
Not long after they were married, they moved to Angleton and went to work for the school district – Scott at the administrative level and Susan in the classroom. While in Angleton, he worked for two superintendents, including Dr. Heath Burns, who would eventually serve as the superintendent for the Abilene ISD. Burns finally brought McLean to Abilene in the summer of 2010 to oversee the district’s operations.
“Dr. Burns would always comment asking me if I wanted to go with him if he ever left Angleton, and each time I said, ‘nope,’ “ McLean recalled. “I had a pretty good handle on things in Angleton, and things were going well. I didn’t need to go anywhere … or so I thought.”
The Mcleans’ youngest daughter, Hannah, is eight years younger than her older sisters, Amy and Emily, who attended ACU. As Hannah got a little older, she quickly became one of the only kids her age in the youth group at the church they attended in Angleton. Plus, with her sisters at ACU, McLean said there was a fear she would lose touch with her older siblings.
So when Burns asked him in the summer of 2009 if he’d be willing to move with him, McLean answered, “Only if it’s somewhere in West Texas.” Once again, the timing worked perfectly because, almost one year later, Burns asked McLean to join him in Abilene after being named the AISD superintendent.
“When I said that about West Texas, it was just a random thought,” said McLean, who has served the AISD as Associate Superintendent for Operations for the last 13 years. “But the timing was perfect. Our middle daughter had just graduated from high school and was going to ACU, where our older daughter was, so that made it a good time for us to transition.”
McLean and his wife had been near the Texas Gulf Coast for almost two decades, helping care for her parents. Now the move gave them a chance to move closer to his parents, who live on a ranch in San Saba County. It also kept the immediate family together as the five of them would be together in the same city.
“Angleton was a great community, just like here,” McLean said. “Friday nights were the center of what was happening in that town. But the transition of coming here was perfect timing. It gave Hannah the chance to stay close to her sisters. If we had stayed in Angleton, she might not have had the same relationship.”
He arrived in Abilene in 2010. Not long after that, discussions began on an $87.8 million bond that included improvements on 21 campuses throughout the district and new buildings for Bonham, Bowie, and Johnston (now Purcell) elementary schools. That bond passed in 2013, and two years later, Dr. David Young joined the AISD as the superintendent. Not long after, internal discussions began on a $138.7 million bond package that would eventually be presented to voters in November 2018.
That bond – which passed easily – built new buildings for Austin, Taylor, and Dyess elementary schools, a STEM facility to host most of the district’s CTE programs and ATEMS (The LIFT), and significant upgrades to athletics and fine arts facilities throughout the district, as well as other projects on several campuses.
McLean was at the helm of each of those bonds regarding the construction projects, something he looks back on with pride.
“Some of the schools we replaced in those two bond elections had terrible working conditions for everyone,” he said. “Now they have state-of-the-art classrooms and working conditions throughout those facilities. You look at what the kids have, what the staff has, and what the facilities offer, and there are no limits on what those kids can learn or how the teachers can teach.”
McLean points with particular pride to The LIFT regarding what he believes it can bring to the city in the long term.
“For a long time, the message for everyone was to go to public school to prepare for college,” he said. “But college isn’t for everyone. We moved from a community in Angleton with a strong blue-collar presence full of skilled workers who made good money and took care of their families. We’re giving kids here in the AISD a chance to learn those skills and trades at a young age and walk out of high school ready to work, make good money, and contribute to the community. If there’s anything we’ve done that has the chance to re-shape the community, it’s The LIFT because people moving in here will see that we value a diverse community and have a skilled workforce that contributes to the community.”
And as his time with AISD and in public education ends, McLean can only be thankful for how perfect timing impacted his career.
“I’m really thankful for my time here,” he said. “Everything has happened at the right time. Everything hasn’t always been great, and there have been some uncertain times. But Dr. Young kept me on when he got here, and I’m thankful I got to finish what I started. I didn’t think it would work out this when I told Dr. Burns in 2009 that I would go with him if he ended up in West Texas. But if there were a place I could have gone in West Texas, Abilene would have been at the top of the list, and I’m proud of the way everything worked out.”
