Chad Prosser, who graduated from Statesboro High School and is now an assistant principal and the athletic director there, will be the school’s principal beginning July 1.

The Bulloch County Board of Education voted 7-1 Tuesday night to accept Superintendent Charles Wilson’s recommended promotion of Prosser to the principal’s office. He will succeed current Principal Ken LeCain, Ed.D., who is retiring after the end of the school year, concluding 35 years as an educator.

Prosser has served the school district for 15 years, 11 of those at Statesboro High School.

“As a lifelong resident of Statesboro, a former teacher and current assistant principal at SHS, a parent of three future Blue Devils, and a proud Statesboro High alumnus, I have a vested interest in the long-term success of the school,” Prosser said in a school system press release. “I believe that I have the necessary skills to lead SHS as it continues to grow and improve in meeting the needs of the community and its students.”

Prosser attained both his bachelor’s degree in secondary education, with a major in mathmatics, and his master’s degree in educational leadership at Georgia Southern University. He then attained a specialist’s degree in educational leadership from Argosy University in Sarasota, Florida.

A career here

After first serving as a student teacher at William James Middle School in 2003, Prosser was hired to a teaching job at Tattnall County High School and remained there one year. But he returned to Bulloch County and to Statesboro High in 2004, serving as a math teacher and assistant softball coach and the school’s head soccer coach until 2011.

Prosser’s first administrative appointment was as an assistant principal at Langston Chapel Middle School from 2011 to 2014. He returned to SHS in 2014 to serve in his current roles as assistant principal and athletic director.

After Tuesday evening’s open work session on other topics, the Board of Education first voted in the open to approve a list of other personel recommendations, such as teacher resignations and retirements. The vote was 7-0, with District 5 member Glennera Martin not casting a vote but not indicating that she abstained, either.

The board also voted, before going into closed session, on a list of contract recommendations for the new school year, such as teacher contract renewals. Martin made the motion on these, seconded by District 1 member Cheri Wagner. The vote was again 7-0, but this time with District 3 member Stuart Tedders, Ph.D., abstaining because his wife, a teacher in the school system, was on the list of recommendations.

Five reassigned

Then the board voted to go into closed session to discuss additional personnel actions. In addition to the recommendation to promote Prosser to principal, Wilson presented a list of administrative transfers, including transfers of five current principals and nine assistant principals among the 15 schools.

Just as with last year’s controversial transfer of one principal to an assistant principal position at another school, Wilson made these transfers without asking the board to vote on them.

“The informational memorandum listing administrative transfers did not require a vote because administrative transfers fall under the superintendent's authority and discretion,” Hayley Greene, the school system’s public relations and marketing specialist, stated in an email Wednesday.

So, after the board returned to open session, the one item voted on was Prosser’s appointment as principal. This required a vote because it involved a promotion, Greene said.

One ‘no’ vote

Tedders made the motion, and District 7 member Heather Mims seconded it. District 4 member April Newkirk cast the one “no” voted.

“Chad Prosser is a great guy and well respected in our school system,” Newkirk responded in an email to the newspaper Wednesday. “I do not think that anyone in the community would have a negative thing to say about Mr. Prosser. My vote at the meeting last night was based on my concerns with Bulloch County School's principal selection process.”

Newkirk said she hopes to help the school system establish a more consistent and transparent process of administrative hiring and reassignment.

“I do want to say that I do not support the regular shuffling of administrators and its impacts on the selection and reassignment of administrators in the system,” she wrote. “I wish Mr. Prosser the very best in his new role as principal of Statesboro High School.”

One  of the transfers Wilson presented is the reassignment of Portal Middle High School Principal Patrick Hill to be athletic director and assistant principal at Statesboro High, replacing Prosser in that position. Four other principals are beiing reassigned, as principals, to different schools, as will be explained in a later story.

Current process

The Bulloch County school system posted the job opening for a Statesboro High principal Jan. 8, after LeCain announced his retirement. LeCain’s 35 years as an educator include 19 years at Statesboro High and five as its principal.

Seven of the 14 people who applied for the job met the posted requirements, the school system stated in the news release that Greene provided. A screening committee reviewed the applications in a “blind” process, in other words one designed to prevent the committee from knowing the applicants’ identities before the initial screening.

This committee chose five applicants to interview in person, and referred three of them to one-on-one interviews with Wilson and meetings with members of Statesboro High’s school council, which includes faculty members, some parents and some community business representatives.

Wilson then made his recommendation with feedback from others involved in the process.