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Can a district like McGuffey afford 2 top administrators?

3 min read

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Dr. Johannah Vanatta, from all indications, is a versatile, effective educator who would serve many school districts well. She has been a teacher and an administrator and is experienced in both areas, currently serving as assistant superintendent of secondary education in the North Hills district.

Vanatta has been in that position for five years, following a four-year stint as assistant principal at North Hills High. She was a Trinity instructor immediately before that, and she has taught in the Washington and Jefferson-Morgan districts.

The Taylorstown resident will be moving on to a new job Nov. 1, in the district where she lives. The McGuffey School Board hired Vanatta as assistant superintendent Thursday night, to succeed Dr. Laura Jacob, who resigned in early August. Vanatta, who will work alongside the superintendent, Dr. Erica Kolat, was approved in an 8-1 vote.

McGuffey should benefit from having a second administrator, especially one who dealt with a number of issues in a large district, one with an enrollment of about 4,200 – more than 2 1/2 times the size of her new employer. But the question is: Can McGuffey afford a second person in the superintendent’s office?

A number of residents raised a howl in June when the school board, in a cost-cutting mode, furloughed nine teachers and three support personnel, but did not touch administration. Slashing instructors and/or programs in any district generally does not sit well with the local citizenry anywhere, and those decisions struck a chord in the McGuffey community.

Several audience members at that meeting four months ago expressed an opinion that the district, enormous geographically but with a middling rural enrollment of about 1,600, was not large enough to accommodate two top administrators – especially at a cost up to $250,000, and at a time when personnel were being let go. One mentioned the names of districts in the region with enrollments similar to McGuffey’s and said none had an assistant superintendent.

That argument is valid to a point, but to be fair, the general public does not have the insight into operations of a school district that administrators and boards of education have. The general public is not privy to financials. Plus, all districts are different from one another. What may be necessary in one is not necessary in another. Two administrators, perhaps, are needed in McGuffey.

Superintendents and assistant superintendents today have a formidable workload, ranging from students of the month to Right to Know requests to spring musicals. A single administrator asking a non-administrator to multi-task by picking up extra duties, as people in other workplaces do today, is not necessarily feasible.

The presence of an assistant superintendent may be vital at McGuffey.

Vanatta, one of three in the North Hills superintendent’s office, is entering a different environment.

This is her home district, where she will soon be a parent and administrator.

She has two children and her husband, Aaron, also has school ties. He is the resource officer in the Quaker Valley School District in addition to being a part-time police officer in South Strabane Township.

Her new job may be a challenge, but it is one she embraces.

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