School board won’t renew Richland superintendent’s contract until they see results
The Richland School Board declined a routine extension of its superintendent contract in the wake of this year’s budget crisis and lackluster growth in student achievement.
Board President Katrina Waters said at the June 24 school board meeting that Superintendent Shelley Redinger had made significant inroads to cut programs to end the school year in the black.
But given the “current situation and the uncertainty” the district faces with enrollment and state and federal funding, Waters said, the board did not believe it was in “the best interest of the community” to extend Redinger’s contract.
“We look forward to looking working with her and her team over the next two years to focus on serving the educational needs of all of our children in our community, and to regain trust in the community and increase transparency and communication,” she said in a public statement.
The board could reconsider a contract extension when it sees results from the decisions they’ve made to realign the budget and “improve school culture for our students, our staff and our families,” Waters said.
Redinger’s current contract went into effect July 1, 2024, and expires June 30, 2027. It was adopted in June 2024.
Her contract allows for a one-year extension to be considered each year at the school board’s discretion. District policy requires the superintendent to be “reviewed” by the board and her salary set annually on or before Aug. 1.
This is the first time the board has declined to extend Redinger’s contract.
Redinger ‘fully committed’ to Richland schools
School superintendents are the chief educators of public schools. They’re a school board’s only employee, and work to direct an executive cabinet to lead building operations, teach students, and write the budget each year.
Waters did not respond to an email request with questions about the decision.
In a Tuesday phone call with the Herald, Redinger said she did not view the non-extension as discipline for the recent bevy of hardships.
“I remain fully committed to the Richland School District and I’m eager to continue working alongside the board,” Redinger said.
She has been the Richland superintendent since June 2020. She took a pay cut to move from Spokane Public Schools back to Richland, where she started her career in education.
Still, Redinger remains one of the highest paid public school superintendent in the Tri-Cities. Her base salary is $217,600 running the smallest of the “Big 3” districts.
Redinger says she’s been satisfied with how her staff has responded to the wide array of difficulties Richland has faced in recent months. They’ve kept students and families at the center of decision making, Redinger says, and she’s “committed to doing the hard work” to improve things at Richland.
Recovering the trust of the community will be crucial as Richland goes out in 2026 to renew its operations levy. That local funding is crucial and bridges the gap between what the state funds and what Richland needs to adequately fund public schools.
About 14% of the Richland School District general budget is funded with local levy dollars. The district gets extra from the state for having an active levy through the Levy Effort Assistance (LEA) program.
Richland’s “perfect storm” came to a head early on this past school year, when administrators flagged rapidly declining reserves in its general fund. The district had overspent its budget the past two years as it continued to grow staff, and it struggled as the state significantly cut LEA funding and as one-time federal pandemic stimulus expired.
Lackluster growth in student achievement
Just before Waters read her statement at the June 24 meeting, Redinger presented results from the district’s eight student growth goals for the 2024-25 school year, measured mostly with spring iReady progress scores.
They wanted to see an increase in the share of K-5 students achieving “typical growth” in spring math and reading assessments, decrease the reading achievement gap for impoverished students and English language learners (ELL), and increase the share of ELL students meeting “expected progress.”
Additionally, they sought to establish a baseline for typical middle school math growth, increase the percent of students graduating within four years, and increase the share of ninth graders “on track” for graduation.
Of those eight goals, only five had data available to compare year-to-year progress. They came up short on those 2024-25 targets, except on one: The district made significant progress in closing the K-8 reading achievement gap among poor students.
The goal was to narrow the gap to 23 percentage points by the end of the school year; in reality, it closed it to 15 points.
At play is also a new K-5 English language arts curriculum, Amplify CKLA, that was implemented in elementary schools this past fall. Redinger says there’s often an implementation “lag” as teachers and staff get used to new curricula.
As the board and Redinger meet this summer to re-evaluate district targets, there’s likely to be an emphasis on improving student attendance.
Redinger says the share of students regularly attending class has not rebounded since the COVID pandemic. Most recent data shows about 1-in-4 Richland students are absent on average two or more times a month.
Across the greater Tri-Cities region, about 1-in-3 students are defined as “chronically absent” from school.
