CHARLESTON, W.Va. — There could be a new school superintendent selected in Kanawha County by as early as next week after the school board’s ongoing search was narrowed down to two finalists.
Current Kanawha County School Superintendent Dr. Tom Williams announced in December that he would be retiring after over 40 years of service in education. Williams plans to retire at the end of this school year.
Kanawha County School board president Ric Cavender told MetroNews that they promptly started the process of enacting a search for a new superintendent once that announcement was made.
Over the past two weeks, Cavender said the board has been accepting applications and resumes for the position. That application window closed on January 24.
He said during Thursday’s board meeting, they took time to review those applications and resumes.
Cavender said they received five applications and narrowed them down to two candidates. He said the interview process will get underway during a special session next Tuesday morning.
And he said they feel really good about the process thus far.
“As you know, when you go through a process like this, people look one way on paper and it’s obviously really important that you bring them in for an interview to learn more about their history, their qualifications and their skill-set,” Cavender said. “We feel very confident that we will go through this process and we will be able to find the next great leader for Kanawha County Schools.”
Cavender said they didn’t want to reveal the names of the potential candidates yet since they still need to go through the interview process.
“We want to make sure that we give the candidates fair treatment and just go through that process, so we’re really excited about it,” he said.
Under Williams’ leadership as superintendent, the decision was made to consolidate several schools throughout the county due to declining student enrollment and a need to save funding and resources.
At the end of last year, several public hearings were held and a vote was taken to consolidate four middle schools as well as build a brand new elementary school at the eastern end of the county that will merge four elementary schools together.
Cavender said as the board goes through this interview process, they believe it will be crucial in finding out how the candidates are feeling about these key issues like consolidation, and how they plan to further address them.
“As you know that is a very strenuous process, not only for the community itself, the students and the faculty, but for the whole system, and it’s really important that we have a leader in place that understands the sensitivities around that and the importance,” he said.
He said the superintendent is also charged with overseeing a very large budget, which stands at around $300 million at this point.
Cavender said with the ongoing challenges across the Kanawha County school system and the state education system as a whole, as well as managing such a large budget and the state’s largest school system itself, working with those beyond the school system will be necessary for the new leader to know how to maneuver.
“You know, we have challenges that we could perceive coming up with the legislative session starting, we don’t know what that’s going to look like and how that could affect county school systems in West Virginia,” he said. “We want to make sure we have a leader in place that is very communicative and can work really well with other leaders across the state and here in Kanawha County.”
Superintendent interviews are the first on the agenda for the Tuesday, February 4 special meeting which gets underway at 8 a.m. at the Kanawha County Board of Education.