Farmer will become superintendent of the seven-school, 4,200-student K-12 Gloucester Public Schools in Gloucester, Mass., pending a visit by Gloucester school officials this week or next. The population of the oldest seaport in the country numbers 30,000, similar to that of Saratoga.

"I'm going to be sad to leave Redwood. It's professionally a challenging and exciting place," Farmer said. "I'm committed to doing as good a job as I can here at Redwood until my last day in office."

Farmer said that he had spent some time thinking about another challenge, "but it had to be the right place."

"Gloucester is offering me an exciting opportunity," Farmer said. "It's clearly a place with deep roots, and the people there have a pride in the community. It's a lovely town and a beautiful part of the world."

Prior to moving to California in 1995, Farmer served as deputy superintendent and superintendent for school districts in his native England.

"When we hired Christopher in 1997, we knew that his experience in England could be a path that he would seek again," said Mary Gardner, superintendent of the Saratoga Union School District. But the goal, Gardner said, was to keep Farmer on for about five years—long enough to give direction and vision to the school.

Gardner said she had known all year that Farmer was seeking other positions. "He's been very upfront with us about it," Gardner said. "Consequently, we're wishing him well on a career path that we knew would happen."

According to Michael Faherty, chairman of the school committee for the Gloucester schools, the March 26 vote to hire Farmer out of two finalists was a unanimous decision.

"We're thrilled to have him come to Gloucester," Faherty said. The committee was impressed with Farmer's administrative skills "but more importantly, he had a very clear focus on what education is all about"—a focus that was aligned with the district's idea of education, Faherty said. "We couldn't have made a better fit, to be perfectly candid."

Faherty said Farmer had visited the district the week of March 10 for long interviews and school visits. "At every stop in the trip, he engaged with students," Faherty said. "Several members of the student council at the high school reported to their advisor that if Mr. Farmer came on board, they want to start attending school committee meetings."

The current superintendent announced late last year that he was retiring, leading to a search that intensified last month. While Farmer was happy about the decision, Faherty said, "His primary concern was to make sure that everything was a smooth transition at Redwood."

"I think being principal of a middle school is not an easy job," said parent Akila Narasinham, board member of the Parent-Teacher Association, "but he's been really successful."

Narasinham said Farmer implemented programs that enabled students to communicate with each other more and started a curriculum that divided the student body into teams, allowing youths to get to know each other better. "From what I've heard from the children, they really seem to like it," Narasinham said.

As past co-president of the Parent-Teacher Association, Cathie Thermond has worked closely with Farmer in the past six years. "I think he brought tremendous things to Redwood that we're going to benefit from for years and years to come," Thermond said.

Thermond said the changes Farmer made include doing "little things that made the school a much better place to be," such as making the environment more welcoming for sixth-graders and their parents and overseeing the Middle School Task Force.

"He's done a lot to provide a safe environment for kids," Gardner said, adding that Farmer is constantly reading and thinking about working with adolescents.

"I think this is a real strong opportunity that he just has to take ahold of," Thermond said. "He'll be a good, strong leader for Gloucester. And, knowing him, I'm sure that he'll be working 12- and 14-hour days until he leaves."

Thermond added, "It'll be a little more challenging with a new superintendent and a new principal."

Gardner herself is retiring at the end of the school year, and the board is in the process of a superintendent search. Farmer said that he did not apply for her position because there were several "attractions to going east," including the town of Gloucester itself and its proximity to family in England and the East Coast.

After Farmer signs a contract with the Gloucester schools and formally submits his resignation, the Saratoga district will post the vacant position and start looking at existing employees to take the job.

"One of our goals is to begin to build a core of administrative leaders within the district," Gardner said. As a result, the district may or may not do external recruitment.

"It's not likely that people are going to spend a lifetime with us," Gardner said of the district. Its schools encourage learning and wanting to move on to greater things, which is what has happened with Farmer.

"We believe in lifelong learning," Gardner said. "That, to me, is the sign of a healthy organization."

"I'm not somebody who hops from place to place and job to job," Farmer said, noting that he has worked at only a handful of schools in his three decades as an administrator. "But this'll be another life experience for me."