Photo by Tom Gilchrist • Mayville Community Schools Superintendent Rhonda Blackburn, second from right, congratulates Mayville High School senior Courtney Perkins when Perkins received a “Student of the Month” Award at a Board of Education meeting in January. Board President Ron Johnson is at left and Tracie Hilts, administrative/financial assistant, is at right. Blackburn will retire at the end of June.
By Tom Gilchrist
For The Advertiser
MAYVILLE — Mayville Community Schools leaders plan to make the superintendent’s position a part-time job for the next one to two school years after Superintendent Rhonda Blackburn retires at the end of June.
“The reason we’re doing that is because — although we did very well with our enrollment this year — the economic outlook for the county is still very bad,” said Dr. Richard Horsch, vice-president of the Board of Education that met in mid-January to discuss the topic.
Though Mayville lost only about seven students this past fall compared to the fall of 2012 — with seven other county school districts suffering larger enrollment declines — board members expect a continuing dip in numbers.
“We’re losing a lot of students and we don’t know where we’re going to be a couple years down the road, so we’re not going with a full-time superintendent at this time,” Horsch said. “Our school district is (operating) exactly the way we want it to go and we’re just going to follow the course on it.”
Horsch said the board will call a special meeting yet this month to vote on hiring a part-time schools chief. He said the board’s seven members agreed at a January Committee of the Whole meeting to seek a part-time leader.
The board hasn’t chosen the next superintendent yet but has started looking for the new leader, and has hired the Michigan Association of School Boards as a consultant, Horsch said.
The search for a part-time chief “is not nearly the extensive search that takes place when you’re looking for a full-time, permanent superintendent,” Horsch said.
“But (the Michigan Association of School Boards) will guide us through this part of it and then when we do go for a permanent superintendent in a year or two — when we know what structure we want — they also will guide us through that.”
Blackburn, hired as superintendent in 2011, also has worked as a teacher and a principal for Mayville Community Schools.
Horsch said Blackburn has led a “wonderful turnaround” in academic achievement by Mayville students. He stressed that although Mayville lost students this school year, the decline was less severe than the enrollment drop in many other Tuscola County school districts.
Countywide, only Akron-Fairgrove Schools gained students according to the unofficial fall student count.
“I don’t want to overstress it, but I just cannot say how much (Blackburn) has done and how much we’re going to miss that lady,” Horsch said.