Tyrrell County Superintendent Michael Dunsmore’s contract will end June 30 2015.

The Tyrrell County Board of Education addressed the matter in a February 23 letter to Tyrrell County Schools faculty and staff.

The letter reads:

“We thank Dr. Dunsmore for his continued service to the Board of Education and Tyrrell County Schools. The Board of Education has retained the National School Board Association to help conduct a search for the system’s next superintendent. The Board will ask the schools board’s association to help gather the view’s of our community on qualities the next superintendent should bring to the county. The members of the board will look forward to working with schools staff, parents, students, and others to help select the best superintendent possible.”

Lee Scripture, Chairman of the Tyrrell County Board of Education,  expressed his appreciation to Tyrrell County School employees for their work and dedication to the school system and the students.

“The strong success of our school system is a direct reflection upon you.

I am sure many of you have heard rumors about possible changes in our administration.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Dunsmore for his hard work and dedication, thought anything less would be an underestimation of his character and work ethic.

As the board addresses it’s challenges, we also hope you too will strive to finish this year as positively as we have in years past.Again thank you all for everything you do,” said Scripture.

Allison Shafer, ‎Legal Counsel and Director of Policy at the North Carolina School Boards Association discussed the Tyrrell Board of Education’s process of looking for a new Superintendent.

“They approved a timeline and a due date. The due date is April 28 for the applications. We normally recommend about eight weeks of advertising. In the meantime they are going to be doing community and staff surveys. We are going to do those from now until April 6. We will come back on April 13 to their open meeting and report the results of that survey. The Board will set aside some time for anyone who wants to comment publicly about characteristics they would like to see in a superintendent,” said Shafer.

Shafer mentioned that the process of finding a new Superintendent for a school system usually takes about four to six months.

“The timeline that we have has a new Superintendent taking office August 15. If they need a interim, we have a list of retired Superintendents who are interested in being interims for short periods of time. It depends on how quickly the process moves whether that target date will be sooner or later,” said Shafer.

State statutes require a month in between the time that a new Superintendent is announced and the Superintendent’s first day of work.

Shafer has been at the School Board Association seventeen years.

She has mentioned she has been involved with 125 searches for 75 school districts.

“We exist to provide services to our school Boards. We provide all kinds of services from risk management to legal training. It is pretty universal that someone outside the district assists the Board with this.We do the administration and the Board makes all the decisions. We are here to assist them with the process and make sure they get a good pool of candidate ,” said Shafer.