The Tuscaloosa City Board of Education unanimously approved Superintendent Paul McKendrick's recommendation to replace the system's director of secondary education position with two new positions that split the duties between them.
The system will now have a director of high school education and a director of middle school education. McKendrick said the duties of the former director of secondary education position included overseeing both middle and high schools. He said that didn't allow for the kind of focus on academic progress that the system's middle schools need.
“We just have to do something with our middle schools in the sense of improving our middle schools,” McKendrick said. “Most of our reform efforts where we've seen achievement has been in our elementary and high schools. We've had a focus on middle schools, but this will improve it even better. It will strictly focus on student achievement.”
On May 12, the board hired former Rock Quarry Middle School principal Andrew Maxey as the system's new director of secondary education, replacing longtime city schools administrator Robert Coates who retires June 1. Mc
Kendrick said Maxey will serve in one of the new director positions but he said he is not sure which one.
Board member James Minyard said he's told city school superintendents for years that the director of secondary education position needed to be divided. He' said he is glad that it's finally happened.
“I've been telling folks for years that when Mr. Coates left it was going to take two people to do what he was doing because no one person is going to volunteer to take care of middle and high schools,” Minyard said.
Maxey's estimated base salary in whatever director position he's going to be transferred to will be about $87,372 without benefits and bonuses, according to the city schools human resources department. The salary of whoever's hired for the other director position will be based on a salary schedule that determines an employee's pay by his or her education level and years of experience. McKendrick said the salary for the second director position will be paid for with money saved from removing a language arts specialist position from the system.
The job goals for both directors are to direct and supervise the curriculum, instruction, testing, assessments, guidance and grants educational programs for their respective group of schools,
according to the job descriptions.
Reach Jamon Smith at jamon.smith@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0204.