Meeting surrounding search for Henrico County’s next school superintendent set for tonight

A meeting tonight, March 1st, will give citizens a chance to interact with Henrico School Board members to discuss what they’d like to see in the school division’s next superintendent.

The 6:30 p.m. community input meeting will be held at L. Douglas Wilder Middle School will start with a brief introduction, after which attendees will break into small groups and meet with their district’s School Board representative. After the group meetings, everyone will gather again to share their group’s thoughts among all attendees before the meeting concludes. The event is part of a process the Board adopted to gather input from community members, school families and staff members.

The school division also continues to gather input through a survey, available through March 7th. So far, more than 3,000 people have completed the survey on the qualities and experience the Board should seek in a new superintendent. The anonymous survey takes about five minutes to complete and is available online in English and Spanish here. It is also available by going to henricoschools.us and looking under “Hot Topics.” A paper version of the survey is available in schools’ main offices. Surveys must be submitted before midnight on March 7th.

The Board is working with the Virginia School Boards Association in the search process. The association will view individual surveys, but the Henrico School Board will only see the compiled survey results.

In addition to the March 1st gathering, the Board will hold a public input session at 6:00 PM on March 8th at the New Bridge Learning Center auditorium. The session will take place after the Board’s regularly scheduled work session. Citizens will have four minutes to address the Board from the podium at the public input session. Citizens can sign up ahead of time by contacting Debbie Ward, clerk of the School Board, at 804.652.3808. However, signing up in advance is not required.

The School Board has set a search timeline, with a target of having a new superintendent in place by July 1st. Patrick C. Kinlaw, the division’s superintendent since 2014, has announced that he will retire June 30th.