Shelly Mason Wins Four-Year Superintendent Contract From School District

  • Shelly Mason, principal of El Tejon School and interim Superintendent for El Tejon Unified School District won a four year contract on Wednesday, Feb. 21. She will hold both jobs to the end of the school year. A new principal will be sought for El Tejon School.

    Shelly Mason, principal of El Tejon School and interim Superintendent for El Tejon Unified School District won a four year contract on Wednesday, Feb. 21. She will hold both jobs to the end of the school year. A new principal will be sought for El Tejon School.

By Patric Hedlund

At a special meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 21 the El Tejon Unified School District Board of Trustees voted to extend a four-year contract for the position of ETUSD Superintendent to longtime district employee Shelly Mason.

Her selection solves a primary concern voiced by community members regarding the need to secure full background reports on candidates for district superintendent. Mason and her family have lived on the mountain for 27 years and are well known to the community.

Mason proudly points to 25 years of service with the district and to the fact that her two children are both graduates of ETUSD schools. She began working with the district in 1982 as a teacher. For the last nine years she has served as principal of El Tejon School.

Mason has served as Interim Superintendent since October 2006, after two previous interim superintendents from the Kern County Superintendent’s office stepped in following the abrupt May 31 resignation and departure of former ETUSD superintendent John Wight. Wight, who had a year left on his two year contract, also left behind grave issues for the trustees, adminstration and community to solve related to the school’s building program.

The election of November 2006 brought three new members to the ETUSD Governing Board of Trustees. Ken Hurst, Cathy Wallace and Anita Anderson joined veterans Paula Regan and Stacey Gustafson in unanimously approving the four year term for Mason last week. They issued a release congratulating Mason, saying she "brings a wealth of strengths to the community through her extensive background, experience and knowledge."

Mason has been guiding the team toward a public process to develop a longterm plan for the district campuses. That process is expected to begin next month.

As the term "wonk" evolved among those in the public sector to be a complimentary way to refer to public servants who are interested in the details of policy, Mason became known to some observers as "an academic wonk with a sense of humor."

She is a careful analyst of the complexities posed for El Tejon Unified School District by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.

In an email note Monday, Feb. 26, Mason explained that "it will be business as usual until the end of this school year." She will continue holding the job as principal at El Tejon School as well as that of superintendent. A new principal will be hired for school year 2007-2008.

Following her appointment, on Friday, Feb. 23, Mason wrote to the trustees: "I want you to know how truly humbled and honored I am to serve as superintendent of the El Tejon Unified School District. We face many and varied challenges in the days and months ahead, and I believe that together we will grow, succeed, and thrive.

"In the words of Gandhi,’We must be the change we wish to see.’ With your help and support, I will strive daily to do exactly that."

This is part of the March 02, 2007 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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