Shawn Woodward
MONROE — Shawn Woodward, currently the schools superintendent in a district north of Spokane, was selected by the school board last week to be Monroe's next superintendent starting July 1.
The board voted 4-0 after more than one-and-a-half hours of final deliberation.
During a public question-and-answer round, Woodward described himself as "an eternal optimist" who believes in honesty and being open and transparent about district affairs both good and bad.
He said he is passionate about supporting special needs and underrepresented students, and said respectful teacher-student relationships are one piece to ensuring all students feel like they belong.
Woodward is the superintendent of the Mead School District, of Spokane County, of about 10,275 students. He became Mead's superintendent in 2019 to fill a retirement vacancy. Prior to that, he was superintendent of the smaller Lake Pend Oreille School District in Sandpoint, Idaho for seven years.
In Lake Pend Oreille, Woodward established in-school mental health clinics and a program to supplement education for homeschooled children as two of his initiatives, according to Spokane's daily paper The Spokesman-Review. People familiar with Woodward told that paper that he is capable of turning around underperforming schools.
Woodward said in Mead the district created an equity dashboard, used to track which schools and groups of students are lagging, and Woodward said he'd initiate the same in Monroe.
He jumped into education some 30 years ago right out of college, and obtained his Master's degree 25 years ago.
Working in Monroe would return him and his wife back to this side of the mountains. Bremerton's his hometown.
Monroe's next step will be to negotiate a salary package with Woodward.
In 2020, Woodward's base salary at the Mead School District was $220,000, according to a database compiled by the Kitsap Sun newspaper. Monroe's most recent hire, interim superintendent Marci Larsen, was hired on a one-year contract with a $256,000 base salary.
In 2019, he began hunting for another district. Before being the chosen winner for Mead, he was the runner-up choice to be superintendent of the South Kitsap School District of Port Orchard and he also was a finalist for superintendent of the Eagle County Schools system near Vail, Colorado, according to the Kitsap Daily News and the Vail Daily newspapers.
He arrived in Mead right after it undertook $11 million in budget shortfall cuts, including closing a STEM-focused alternative high school and a second school program, and had to navigate that.
He described Monroe as having town pride, community engagement and he said he applied because he wants to be part of it.
Woodward said he supports keeping the public engaged in district affairs. He described that while in Lake Pend Oreille he held stakeholder meetings involving thousands of people.
He said he prefers connecting person-to-person. "I'm known for calling people and asking them to come in to have a respectful conversation," Woodward said.
Answering a question about hiring people to work at the district, Woodward suggested hyper-localizing recruitment drives in the neighborhoods which individual schools serve.
The other two finalists were Voni Walker, a former Monroe teacher who is the superintendent of the small Manson School District in Chelan County, and Greg Schwab, an assistant superintendent in the Edmonds School District.
Walker spoke of creating an inviting workplace culture to attract new hires. Schwab, answering a different question, spoke to how the district is poised for a new strategic plan which he could lead.
They advanced from an original field of 21 applicants.
The superintendent candidates toured schools, met with groups of teachers and had a whirlwind of activities Thursday, Jan. 26.
The community panel of 12 people asked candidates nine pre-scripted questions for a community open meeting before the final vote. One of the panelists said they did not select the questions.
Monroe's current superintendent, Marci Larsen, came out of retirement to run the district, taking over for chief academic officer Kim Whitworth. Whitworth took on the temporary role of interim superintendent to fill a void when Superintendent Justin Blasko was put on leave in late 2021. The district mutually separated with Blasko six months later with a $396,374 payout to terminate his superintendent contract early.
The district always planned to do a search to find a permanent superintendent this year, the district said previously.
