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THURSDAY. JUNE 24. 2021 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 9A
Supt. Young and schools agree on contract;
No buy-out clause included
A Pickens native, Tony
Young brings experience
both as a teacher and as a
school board member to the
superintendent position.
By Dan Pool
Editor
dpool@piekensprogress.com
In a brief called meeting
before a budget workshop
June 16, the school board of
ficially gave Superintendent
Tony Young a contract, hiring
him on a “rolling” 30-day
basis and with no guaranteed
length of employment.
The contract pays Young
a rate of $145,000 a year,
plus all the typical perks that
come with a top position in
the schools - cell phone, ve
hicle use, vacation days, in
surance and contributions to
state school system retire
ment.
This marked the first time
the board has hired for their
top staff position without of
fering a fixed period of time
and without penalties for
early termination.
Young and members of
the school board have been at
the center of controversy
over the dismissal of former
Superintendent Rick
Townsend for much of this
year. Young was previously
serving as assistant superin
tendent. He was named in
terim superintendent when
the board voted to “re-nego-
tiate” Townsend’s contract in
January, and removed him
from office. Young was later
named superintendent.
No members of the public
attended the Wednesday
meeting where Young’s con
tract was approved. The
schools needed an official
contract in place by the end
of June. Young had been
working under his existing
assistant superintendent con
tract.
Young’s contract is an
open-ended 30 day “rolling”
arrangement, meaning it au
tomatically renews every 30
days. Either he or the board
can terminate it without any
buyout other than the 30-day
period. Following
Townsend’s departure, a
Progress story found that
past school boards have spent
more than $650,000 buying
superintendents out of their
contracts over the past 15
years.
“This is a fair way to do
it,” Young said of the lack of
a buyout clause in his con
tract. “If the board doesn’t
want me here, I don’t need to
be here.”
Young said following the
weeks of tense meetings and
controversy, including a still
ongoing recall effort of two
of the five board members, it
appears things have calmed
down at the school’s central
office, giving them time to
move ahead with several ini
tiatives.
“We are poised to move
the school district forward,”
he said. “All five board mem
bers are very positive and
working well together.”
Despite the earlier public
furor, the staff remained fo
cused on education, Young
said. “Things are really run
ning smoothly,” he said. “We
are blessed with good people
in these buildings, driving
these buses, fixing the meals
in the cafeteria. I would put
them up against any system
anywhere.”
Young identified three
challenges they are concen
trating on:
• Producing a defensive
budget for the next year. In
dications are that in the next
two years, the economy will
slow, so they are keeping
spending tight to prevent the
need for any drastic adjust
ments if an economic down
turn happens suddenly.
“Very conservative plan
ning for a possible down
turn,” is how Young
described it. “I think it is pru
dent to be careful. I am al
ways conservative in
budgeting but particularly so
right now.”
The staff plans to have a
tentative budget to present to
the board at the July meeting.
• Find ways to recoup lost
learning from the past year
due to the COVID disrup
tions. The school district will
not offer any virtual options
next year. Young said the sys
tem does best by educating
students in the classroom. At
the start of the next school
year, they will assess each
student to find out how much
they missed over the past
year. This is critical in the
lower grades as some stu
dents may be missing an en
tire year’s lessons, he said.
He said the schools have
the potential to draw millions
in federal CARES (COVID
relief) funding but “it’s like
walking a tightrope.” Young
said the requirements and
stipulations mandate how the
funds can be spent and what
qualifies. “We are going to be
very careful,” he said. “You
can’t go hire people using
these CARES funds and then
not be able to sustain it when
the funds run out.”
• Developing in-house
leadership/succession plans
- Young said it has become
clear that the schools must
develop succession plans for
their key roles including his
own position. He said many
of the staff in key roles are
approaching retirement age
and the system has not done
enough to groom people to
step into the top posts.
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& CARLILE, PC
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