Tom Kimbrell, superintendent of the Bryant School District since 2014 and a former five-year Arkansas commissioner of education, will retire from the Bryant system June 30.
Karen Walters, currently deputy superintendent of the Bryant district, has been named Kimbrell's successor as chief executive of the 9,134-student district.
Kimbrell, who will be 55 next month, submitted his retirement notice to the Bryant School Board at a meeting Thursday.
"Since I plan to retire at the end of this school year, I wanted the faculty, staff and patrons of Bryant Schools to know now and not after the millage election on March 14, 2017," Kimbrell said in a statement Friday.
The Bryant School Board voted in October to ask voters at a special election in March to approve a 3.6-mill tax increase and the refinancing of existing bonds. The money generated by those actions would be used to finance the cost of a new elementary school, a new junior high school and projects at Bryant High School, including a new cafeteria, fine arts building and physical education facility. Updates to other campuses in the district are also planned.
Following Kimbrell's announcement of his retirement, the Bryant School Board asked Walters to take the job and she accepted, district spokesman Devin Sherrill said Friday.
Salary and contract terms for Walters have not yet been negotiated, Sherrill said.
"This school district is on the verge of rocketing to the next level and it needs an energetic and creative leader," Kimbrell said, adding that the district "will be in great hands" with Walters.
Walters, 45, has been deputy superintendent in Bryant since July 2014. She worked from 2011 to 2014 as an assistant commissioner for educator effectiveness and teacher licensure at the Arkansas Department of Education, where Kimbrell was the commissioner.
She was superintendent of the Hector School District in Pope County from 2007 to 2011. She is also a former superintendent of the Evening Shade School District.
Walters has a bachelor's degree and master's degree in education from Arkansas State University and a doctorate from Harding University.
Walters' current salary is $119,627, according to contract information on the district's website.
Kimbrell was the executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators when he was selected by then-Gov. Mike Beebe in 2009 to head the Arkansas Department of Education, where he served until 2014. Before his work with the administrators' association, Kimbrell was superintendent of the North Little Rock School District in 2004-05 and of the Paragould district from 1995 to 2004.
Kimbrell's salary is listed as $211,696 on the website for the Bryant district, where his wife is also employed as an administrator.
NW News on 11/24/2016