Charles E. Wright Jr., a program officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will be the new deputy superintendent in Seattle Public Schools, and Bremerton Superintendent Lester “Flip” Herndon Jr. will join the district as the new assistant superintendent for capital, facilities and enrollment planning.

Seattle Superintendent Jose Banda announced the two appointments Monday, saying in a prepared news release that their experience will be an excellent fit for the district.

The district described Wright as a senior executive with 20 years of experience, including working in large urban school districts.  Along with his most recent work as an education program officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he was chief strategy officer for Denver Public Schools.  In that role, the release said, Wright “focused on the use of metrics and data to guide decision-making.”

Banda said Wright’s skills in resource allocation will help the district align its budget to its new five-year plan.

Wright will replace Robert Boesche, who has served as interim deputy superintendent since 2011.

Herndon has been superintendent of the Bremerton School District for the past four years and, before that, was assistant superintendent for K-12 support for Tacoma Public Schools.

He will fill a new job that Banda created last month, when he established a new department of capital, facilities and enrollment planning.   Before that change, Assistant Superintendent Pegi McEvoy oversaw capital, facilities, enrollment planning and a host of other areas, such as transportation and logistics.

At the time, Banda said he felt that managing captial projects was a full-time job in itself.