McComb school trustees have ended their search for a superintendent by unanimously electing interim superintendent Therese Palmertree to the post.
Palmertree has been acting superintendent since the summer, filling the job left by the departure of Dr. Pat Cooper. Before taking the interim role, Palmertree was director of curriculum.
The board voted to hire Palmertree at a specially called meeting Thursday. Trustee Dr. Shade Quin made the motion to hire her, and Maurice Chester seconded. Also voting were board president Bettye Nunnery, vice president Dr. Kent Kebert and the newest board member, Eleice Rayborn.
In other key personnel moves, the board named McComb High School principal Levander German deputy superintendent. And Dr. Sharon Slater, who was dean of student affairs at the high school, has been named principal at MHS.
The board designated Nunnery and Kebert to set the salary and length of Palmertree’s contract. They’ll make their recommendation to the board later. Trustees meet again on Tuesday.
Nunnery declined to speak about Thursday’s vote, saying she didn’t want to comment “at this time.”
Rayborn also had no comment about the vote, except to say she was “supportive of it.”
Rayborn deferred any public comment on Palmertree’s position to Nunnery.
Chester said hiring Palmertree made sense.
“I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “I based it on (the fact that) she’s already been in the system. She pretty much knows what going on. I’m satisfied with it. We need more community support. It doesn’t matter who you bring in, if you don’t have community support, it won’t work.”
Palmertree’s selection ends the search for a superintendent by the Mississippi School Boards Association on behalf of the school district. A search launched in late summer did not produce a candidate the board approved of, so trustees agreed earlier this month to renew the search, using the same criteria.
Palmertree didn’t apply for the job in the first round, but she changed her mind when the first search yielded so few candidates.
“After the first search, and having had the experience within the district, I made the decision to make it known that I would serve,” Palmertree said Thursday.
Kebert said he believes Palmertree will continue to do good things for the school district.
“I think she has been doing a terrific job as our interim superintendent,” Kebert said. “Once we learned she was interested in the job, we wanted to get her to apply. I think she’s going to make a fine superintendent.”
He said Palmertree had tackled the things the board asked of her — to improve instruction and discipline and bring up school accreditation levels. And while the district doesn’t know if levels have improved, there has been progress in the other areas.
Kebert said Palmertree also has made efforts to reach out to the community and improve relations between the people of Pike County and the school district.
“What sold me about her was that she’d done such a good job as interim. That was the thing that made me want to consider her,” he said. “She’s familiar with the system, she knew the personnel and she wanted to be here. She’s committed to our area.”
Palmertree, 57, said she’s eager to continue the work she started this past summer.
“I am so excited about this opportunity, working with the community and truly creating open dialogue,” she said. “A main objective is going to be to continue the ‘Why Education?’ campaign, because I truly believe that a community that celebrates its public school system is a community that’s going to thrive.”
Palmertree said she’ll continue to focus “on rigor and relevance of our curriculum and instructional program and building relationships within all of our stakeholders — student and teacher, teacher and parent, teacher and principal, administrators’ relationships with each other and reaching out to the community at large.
“The key is to do this through a process of authentic community engagement — involving all sectors … having true, two-way communication and dialogue, building trust and relationships over time and facilitating opportunities for people to come together and focus on those issues critical to having a successful school system,” she said.
Specifically, she wants to address the dropout rate and increase the district’s graduation rate.
What’s important, she said, is “always having clear, open and consistent communication from this office to the community, from our schools to the community and from our classrooms to the community.”
Palmertree said she looks forward to working closely with German, noting that the high school’s accountability level has risen, and the school is close to being a Level 4.
“These academic improvements are attributable to his focus on creating a safe environment where teachers can teach and students can learn,” Palmertree said. “I’m encouraged that he has agreed to work with me closely and expand his leadership to the district level. And Dr. Slater has a strong background in curriculum and has proven to be a knowledgeable and supportive leader at the high school.”
