Kennewick school leaders restart work on the ‘most important’ decision for its board
Kennewick School District and its school board have laid out a new timeline to find a replacement for retiring Superintendent Traci Pierce.
The district and its contractor, Northwest Leadership Associates, will resume the search after abandoning a previous plan to hire a deputy-successor superintendent this school year. Pierce plans to retire in June 2025.
School board President Gabe Galbraith called it the “most important” decision for school boards to make.
“It’s our employee and they’re going to set the vision for the district going forward,” he told the Tri-City Herald this week.
Applications to be the district’s next chief executive are currently open and will close Jan. 10.
Here’s what comes next:
- The school board will hold a closed-door executive session Jan. 15 to begin screening applicants for preliminary interviews.
- Those first interviews will take place 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 28-29. The school board will hold another executive session after the final interview.
- Finalists will interview February 4-6. These candidates will attend meetings with staff, students and community members. The board will hold another executive session after its final interview. It expects to announce its final selection by Feb. 7.
The selected candidate will then begin work on July 1.
The new superintendent’s compensation will be negotiated but the current base salary in the superintendent contract is about $178,000.
Kennewick leadership enters a new era
Kennewick School District is the Tri-Cities’ largest public school district, serving 19,000 full- and part-time students enrolled in 33 schools.
It’s also the city’s largest employer, with 3,500 staff and teachers under a $320 million budget.
The district is nearing the end of an era of transition and reorganization as several senior-level administrators retire or depart.
Its associate superintendent of human resources, Doug Christensen, left at the end of 2023. And Vic Roberts, the district’s executive director of business operations, will retire at the end of December.
Bronson Brown, the school district’s general counsel, is also leaving after being successfully elected to a vacant judicial seat on the Benton Franklin Superior Court. He’s been replaced by Paul Brachvogel of Preg O’Donnell and Gillett.
Last school year, Kennewick jump started a plan to hire a deputy superintendent who would shadow Pierce for a year. But the district and school board ultimately chose to switch gears and fill other priority cabinet roles.
Thomas Brillhart, who formerly worked for New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated Schools, was hired July 1 to lead the district’s human resources and business offices.
Pierce has served as Kennewick School District’s superintendent since January 2020. She was hired to replace Dave Bond, who led the district for more than a decade.
She spent the previous 24 years — including the last six as the superintendent — at Lake Washington, the state’s second-largest school district.
In a statement to the Herald, Pierce said she was providing support and assistance to the board’s search process and was committed to ensuring a smooth transition.
