Superintendent leaving RCS STORY HIGHLIGHTS Richmond Community Schools Superintendent Allen Bourff has announced his departure effective Jan. 1. Pending final contract approval, Bourff will become superintendent of Hamilton Southeastern Schools. Bourff has been RCS superintendent since 2004. The RCS board is beginning conversations about the search for an interim and replacement. Richmond Community Schools Superintendent Allen Bourff has accepted an offer to become the superintendent at Hamilton Southeastern Schools in Fishers, Ind. The job is contingent on approval by the Hamilton Southeastern school board. The board has scheduled a special meeting for that purpose Dec. 2. If approved, Bourff will begin the position Jan. 1, 2015. Bourff joined RCS in 2004. “I’m very proud of our accomplishments here in Richmond,” Bourff said. “I’m very proud of how our school community has come together to meet the challenges we’ve faced and turn them into those accomplishments.” Bourff characterized the challenges of Hamilton Southeastern — a growing suburban district with 20,000 students in the process of establishing new attendance boundaries to balance school enrollment — as a “new kind of opportunity.” He said the situation at RCS is such that “a new person can come in and not feel like they’re completing a project someone else started months ago. ... “I don’t think it’s a bad time here in Richmond (for the transition), and it’s a great time in my career ... to go to a district that can also use what I stand to bring.” “We’re all sorry to see him go,” said Mark Millis, assistant superintendent at RCS. “He’s been a good leader for the school corporation.” Millis cited Bourff’s working with community partners to help the schools, his innovation in bringing programs such as Chinese language to RCS and his willingness to face tough challenges such as redistricting head on. When asked about the highlights of his time at RCS, Bourff asked for time to think over his answer. “A lot of people have asked me that,” he said. But he did say 10 years is “a fairly long tenure these days, especially in an urban district that faces some of the challenges that we’ve had to face. ... There are opportunities cropping up in other districts all around the country. ... People are being enticed.” Bourff declined to say he had been “recruited” by Hamilton Southeastern but acknowledged he had been approached with a phone call and had been “encouraged to answer that call.” For himself, Bourff is a bit nervous right now. “If a person is not nervous about the next step they’re taking, they’re probably not taking it seriously,” he said. But he isn’t nervous for RCS. “I’m very confident that our challenges will be met with the same enthusiasm and vigor as the last 10 years,” said Bourff. RCS board president Linda Morgason praised Bourff for being “ever-present in the community and highly visible in the schools.” Morgason said when she first heard about the superintendent’s plans to leave, she told him, “I want to look at this as an opportunity, but it’s hard right now.” Still, she shares Bourff’s confidence in RCS, its staff and its future. “It will be an opportunity,” she said. The board is beginning to have conversations about procedures for the search for a new superintendent and naming an interim superintendent, said Morgason. She is not sure whether the matter will be on the agenda for the board meeting set for 5:30 p.m. Monday, but she said it might be too soon for public discussion. Morgason said the board is checking to make sure it complies with laws about what conversations must be open to the public and what they can do in executive session. “We will just do our best to put the best process in place and move forward,” she said. “There’s a lot of work ahead of us.” Bourff made it clear he will not be part of the process of deciding what will come next for Richmond Community Schools, but he expressed a hope that the board can find a superintendent before the budget process begins at the end of the school year. Staff writer Louise Ronald: (765) 973-4469 or lronald@pal-item. Follow her on Twitter at twitter/LouiseRonaldPI. Richmond superintendents and their tenures •T.A. Mott, 1896-1916 •J.T. Giles, 1916-1919 •J.H. Bentley, 1919-1921 •W.G. Bate, 1921-1942 •O.M. Swihart, 1942-1946 •Paul C. Garrison, 1946-1972 •John W. Egger, 1972-1979 •William Christopher, 1979-1986 •Richard W. Morrison, 1986-1989 •Raymond J. Golarz, 1989-1995 •Eugene W. Thompson, 1995-1998 •Anthony P. Broadwell, 1998-1999 •Phyllis L. Amick, 1999-2004 •Allen Bourff, 2004-2014 Memorable moments under Bourff’s leadership •In October 2007, Richmond High School was called a “dropout factory” in a national analysis by Johns Hopkins University. The label was based on the school’s 54 percent graduation rate in 2006. The rate rose to 80 percent in 2009 and Johns Hopkins removed the negative label in 2010. This year, the graduation rate at RHS was 94 percent. •Richmond Community Schools enacted a dress code that gave rise to controversy during the 2009-2010 school year. The code prohibited students from wearing clothes with any distinguishing marks, including stripes, logos, plaid or floral prints. More than 200 RHS students were suspended for violations during the first few days of school, and hundreds of parents showed up at the Aug. 26 school board meeting to protest. The code was modified several times and the ban on logos, stripes and other designs was lifted in 2012. •In the summer of 2012, RCS closed C.R. Richardson, Highland Heights and Garrison elementary schools and created six preschool through fourth-grade buildings and two fifth- through eighth-grade intermediate schools in the face of decreased enrollment and revenue. •Earlier this month, RHS received its first-ever A grade from the Indiana State Board of Education. Other RCS schools receiving A’s were Charles, Fairview and Westview elementaries. Test and Dennis intermediate schools and Crestdale Elementary received B’s, and the Elizabeth Starr Academy for Young Leaders and Vaile Elementary received D’s. •At a celebration of Bourff’s 10 years of service to the district in August of this year, the superintendent was praise for his role in helping turn around the graduation rate and in the creation of the Ninth Grade Academy, the Early College Preparatory Program and the district’s international partnerships, including the introduction of Chinese as a language course. pal-item/…/superintendent-leaving-…/19315891/ pal-item/story/news/education/2014/11/20/superintendent-leaving-rcs/19315891/
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 22:43:25 +0000
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