The Waynesboro School Board has set a special meeting for Thursday to continue its rushed search for a new superintendent.
The meeting will be held at Waynesboro High School with a 6 p.m. start time.
The one agenda item: a work session to establish qualifications for the superintendent job posting.
Earlier this month, the School Board laid out a schedule that has the body naming a new superintendent by late October or early November, which, not coincidentally, would fill the job before the Nov. 3 elections for two open seats on the five-member public body.
The background to this is, state law only requires the School Board to have a new superintendent in place within 180 days, so, six months, of the job becoming open.
The clock, thus, doesn’t start ticking until Jan. 1, 2027 – the current superintendent, Jeffrey Cassell, announced last month his intention to retire effective Dec. 31, so, the end of the calendar year.
We don’t need to have a new superintendent on the job until June 30, 2027, which also happens to be the end of the 2026-2027 fiscal year.
A lot of folks in the know seem to know what’s going on: there’s a growing sense from within the school system that the School Board wants to hire from within, which we absolutely cannot allow to happen, given the state of the school system.
Our school system is failing, and that’s not just me saying that – the Virginia Department of Education evaluates K-12 schools in the Commonwealth using a four-tier system that assesses student mastery, academic growth, readiness and graduation rates, and the VDOE numbers tell us that our school system is failing.
VDOE uses this four-tier system to assign schools one of the following ratings:
- Distinguished: Exceeds expectations
- On Track: Meets expectations
- Off Track: Does not meet expectations
- Needs Intensive Support: Significantly below expectations
The bad news for Waynesboro:
- Westwood Hills Elementary and Kate Collins Middle School rate as Needs Intensive Support.
- Our other schools – Berkeley Glenn Elementary, Wenonah Elementary, William Perry Elementary, and then Waynesboro High School, are all Off Track.
Relative to our neighbors:
- Augusta County: Four of the county’s five high schools are Distinguished, the other is On Track; three of the five middle schools are On Track, the other two are Off Track; one of the nine elementary schools is On Track, with five Off Track and three Needs Intensive Support.
- Staunton: The high school and McSwain Elementary are Distinguished; Bessie Weller Elementary is On Track; Ware Elementary is Off Track; the middle school Needs Intensive Support.
The agenda for this week’s work session doesn’t include any times set aside for comments from the public, ostensibly because they don’t want to hear anymore from anybody on the outside.
It wouldn’t hurt for people to show up anyway.
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Chris Graham
