Jamestown School Board President Paul Abbott and Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker
The Jamestown School Board voted Thursday to extend Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker‘s contract as well as approving a contract with the Jamestown Principals Association.
School Board President Paul Abbott said the way Dr. Whitaker handled the Pandemic at the same he started working for Jamestown Public Schools validated that the board hired the right person, “You know, I’ve been on this board since 2008, so I can’t speak directly for times in front of that, but it’s hard to imagine a time in education that was more difficult than that. Everybody was learning how to handle that. There was no blueprint for how to handle that. And he brought us through that with grace and professionalism and handled really a terrible situation better than I think any of us could have hoped for.”
Whitaker’s contract, which was at the end of its second year, now extends five years until the end of the 2027 school year.
Whitaker said the contract with the Jamestown Principals Association affects 16 staff members which includes all of the Building Principals, Assistant Principals, and the Athletic Director, “It is a five-year contract. It involves raises across those years of 3% and it involves the opportunity for professional development that they didn’t have before. So, not having professional development in a professional leadership capacity like that is a challenge so we wanted to make sure that they had that opportunity as well.”
Whitaker said negotiations only took a few months and were not contentious.
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