With the recent retirement announcement for West Central Valley Superintendent Dr. David Arnold, the school board is now tasked with finding a new superintendent.

Arnold gave his letter of intent to retire to the school board at their regular meeting in July, effective at the end of the 2017-18 school year. He explains why he submitted his retirement letter ahead of the start of the school year.

“I did it early so they have time to really start the search process to find what they want. Most people know that I’m a superintendent and elementary principal. What direction do they want? Do you want just a superintendent with four building principals? Those are things that they have to decide before they really start the process.”

Arnold adds that the board will have a workshop to decide on their priorities and what direction they want to go. He describes what role he’ll take as the board goes through the search process.

“As far as my role is just to help facilitate their discussions (and) if they have questions, share what information I can. But they’re the ones that are going to have to define what they want as a school district.”

At this time, Arnold doesn’t know if the board will use a third party to help with the search process.