TRSU superintendent, assoc. super announce retirements

©2015 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Two Rivers Supervisory Union Superintendent Bruce Williams and Associate Superintendent Linda Waite have announced they will retire from their positions effective June 30, 2016.

The search for Williams’ replacement will be handled by an outside search firm, while the TRSU Executive Board has recommended dissolving the post of associate superintendent in the 2016/2017 budget. That recommendation will be voted on by the full TRSU Board later this month.

Williams has been in the education field for 42 years, beginning his career teaching at elementary and high schools in New Hampshire and in Vermont, where he was a mentor to Armando Vilaseca, who would become Vermont  commissioner of education.

After 16 years as a principal in New Hampshire, Williams became the interim superintendent of the former Rutland-Windsor Supervisory Union, which later became the superintendency of the TRSU.

“This was a difficult decision because I still thoroughly enjoy supporting this board, our constituent boards, our leadership teams, our staff and, most importantly, our students in the ongoing effort to become the best learning organization we can be,” wrote Williams in a post Monday to the TRSU organization.

He added that he had “benefited from a generous and thoughtful partnership with our associate superintendent of schools, Linda Waite.”

For the past 26 years, Waite has been involved in education in Vermont as a teacher, principal and curriculum coordinator. Besides her current position as associate superintendent with TRSU, she has been a superintendent at Flood Brook, Green Mountain Union High, Manchester Elementary and Middle and the former Windsor Southwest Supervisory Union.

Both Waite and Williams were instrumental in helping to create the Two Rivers Supervisory Union, a 2013 merger of the former Windsor Southwest Supervisory Union with the former Rutland-Windsor Supervisory Union that united the schools of Chester, Andover, Baltimore and Cavendish with those of Ludlow, Mt. Holly and Plymouth.

Of her career, Waite said, “I am ever grateful for the opportunity to lead our schools with such fine administrators, teachers, boards and communities.” She added that while “it will be very difficult for me to end such an important chapter of my life … I look forward to maintaining a relationship with the TRSU community.”

Williams and Waite oversaw a supervisory union with 987 students, 139 teachers and 15 administrators. Williams’ salary is $107,200 a year and Waite’s is $103,025.

Following Williams’ and Waite’s announcements, TRSU Board chair Bob Herbst expressed the board’s appreciation for the work Williams and Waite have done for the supervisory union, especially during a time of significant change.

Herbst said that Williams and Waite “have consistently guided the boards to decisions based upon improved educational opportunities for our students and prudent financial management.”

Williams said that while the TRSU had gone through a “remarkable process of creation,” it also was on the “cusp of perhaps even more significant change,” and that the timing was right for a change at the top.

Williams was referring to Act 46, the education reform law passed by the Vermont legislature earlier this year that calls for larger school districts to be formed under one school board, one budget and one tax rate. The aim is to create more equal educational opportunities for students under a more cost-effective system.

— From press releases and original reporting by Cynthia Prairie.