The Gaston County school board voted unanimously Monday to hire the North Carolina School Boards Association to help find a successor to Superintendent Jeffrey Booker, who is leaving in June after almost 10 years on the job.
The association is also running Wake County’s superintendent search. The state’s largest district hopes to make a decision in June or July.
Sam Thorp, an attorney who does searches for the association, warned the Gaston board they probably won’t get as many applicants as they did a decade ago.
“Really beginning with COVID and carrying over into today, although we have seen an uptick, there have been much smaller applicant pools, and a much smaller number of sitting superintendents, or people with superintendent experience that are applying,” Thorp said. “I would want to encourage you to adjust your expectations a little bit.”
The Gaston board also named Stephen Laws, a former Gaston County teacher and administrator, as interim superintendent. Laws is a former superintendent for Elkin City Schools and Wilkes County Schools. He currently lives in Gastonia and is an associate professor of education at Gardner-Webb University.
Laws will work from July 1 through Dec. 31, earning $19,700 a month. That’s the equivalent of $236,400 a year.
Booker, who has been superintendent since November 2013, announced in April that he would leave at the end of this school year. He has not given reasons or responded to an interview request.
Gaston County schools have been in the news recently for persistent payroll problems that have led to teacher protests and a lawsuit. The school board also voted to defy the state’s school calendar law to open early in 2022 and 2023. Like districts across the country, it is working to address racial and income disparities and to help students overcome setbacks from the pandemic disruption.
