Buckingham narrows field in superintendent search

By Barney Breen-Portnoy

Published: May 3, 2008

Buckingham school officials have narrowed their search for a new superintendent to six candidates.
Interviews will begin May 12 and School Board Chairman David Christian hopes that the board will make a selection by the end of the month.
Superintendent Larry Massie, 65, is retiring after eight years in charge of the school division.
Christian said that Massie’s leadership skills will be missed.
“What a loss,” Christian said this week. “We’ve been fortunate to have someone with his character and his knowledge.”
The Buckingham school division has improved significantly in recent years, Massie and Christian said. Last year, the division made Adequate Yearly Progress for the first time.
“We’ve worked hard to improve the instructional program here,” Massie said. “We have made great improvements in instruction and in test scores.”
Massie, an educator for 41 years, plans to continue living in the county in retirement.
“I had a wonderful experience here,” he said. “I’ve really taken to the county. I’ve made some wonderful friends and the students are the warmest and most caring students I have known.”
Christian said the board is looking for a candidate who will be just as rooted in the community as Massie is.
“We don’t want a transient person,” he said. “We want someone vested in the community, someone that people will see at games and at the supermarket.”
The new superintendent will also be someone who understands rural education.
“The politics are different in smaller, rural school systems like ours compared to bigger systems,” he said.
Twenty-seven people inquired about the opening and the board received 17 full applications. That original pool of applicants included 10 men, seven women, nine Virginia residents, eight out-of-state residents, 13 whites, four non-whites, six current or former superintendents, three assistant superintendents, six central office administrators and two principals or building level administrators.
The Buckingham school system has about 2,000 students and an overall budget of about $28 million. There are four primary elementary schools, one middle school and one high school.
The new superintendent is only part of a larger turnover trend at the top of the school division.
Of the seven members of the Buckingham School Board, five came on board in last fall’s election.
“We’re still gelling,” Christian said.
One of the new superintendent’s first and most imperative tasks, Christian believes, will be earning the trust of the School Board and school staff.
“The superintendent works for the School Board but everyone else works for the superintendent,” Christian said. “The superintendent has a lot of leeway so it’s important that the superintendent earns the trust of both staff and the School Board.”