Following the high-profile resignation of Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, Albany City School District officials have named an acting superintendent. WAMC's Capital Region Bureau Chief was on hand when Kimberly Young Wilkins met the media Monday at the Board of Education.
After a difficult three years as City School District of Albany Superintendent, Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard agreed to resign effective June 30. She's on paid leave through June 30th. According to the Times Union, she suggested that a lack of unity and trust had come between herself and the school board.
Albany Common Councilmember Vivian Kornegay spoke last week at an school board meeting recorded by Newschannel13. "The Albany public school district board is dysfunctional. It is dysfunctional, it's segregated and discriminatory."
School board president Kenny Bruce told the newspaper there were philosophical differences involved in Vanden Wyngaard's dismissal, but wouldn't elaborate.
While a national search for a new superintendent is being conducted, longtime Myers Middle School principal Kimberly Young Wilkins was tapped to serve as acting superintendent. Bruce introduced her to reporters. "She's been in the school district for 25 years and the last 10 she spent as principal at Myers Middle School, actually the only principal Myers has ever had."
Bruce anticipates that Wilkins will be named interim superintendent. "Over the next couple weeks we will appoint an interim superintendent. At this moment it will probably be Dr. Wilkins, at the moment, based on the need. To appoint her as interim superintendent we actually need a full vote of the board on that resolution. So we'll probably sit down with Dr. Wilkins between now and the next board meeting and hopefully we'll have a resolution."
An Albany native, Wilkins has been employed by the district since 1994, serving as an administrator since 1997. In hindsight, Bruce says the board mistakenly has not clearly defined the superintendent’s role and performance standards. The district has had a persistently low graduation rate and faces other challenges. "So that both the superintendent and the community understand where we are, what we're trying to accomplish and how we're judging ourselves and how we're determining whether the superintendent can stay or go."
Bruce, who says "she'll have to get up and running pretty quick," hopes naming Wilkins will have a positive impact on the coming February 9th vote to rebuild Albany High School. The vote on the $180 million project follows a more expensive version of the renovation’s defeat in a close vote in November.
Wilkins once taught at the high, and she agrees. "I remember the metal walls at Albany High and trying to teach through those walls, so it's gonna become very important for the community to remember what's going on at the high school and what is the end result and we really do need to get the infrastructure of the high school set up and ready to go for this vote because this is so needed at this point, so very needed."
Bruce spells out the qualities the board is seeking in its search for a new superintendent: "We'd like to see plans in place. We'd like to see measurable determinants that suggest we're heading in the right direction. We'd like to see engagement, more engagement between our superintendent and the staff and our families, we felt like that was an area that warranted increased improvement. And I think planning, execution and measurable are what we're looking for moving forward."
Bruce expects the search for a new superintendent to be under way by the end of February. Vanden Wyngaard could not be reached for comment.
