Jim Kirkland will be out of a job again around the first of August, but that’s all right by him.
In fact, he relishes the prospect.
“I’m going to get back on the golf course and see if I can’t bring my handicap back down,” the Ransom Canyon resident and interim Snyder school superintendent said.
Kirkland is scheduled to turn over the reins of the Snyder Independent School District to Gene Solis, who will be leaving the same job with the Whitney ISD near Waco. On July 11, the Snyder school board named Solis as the sole finalist for the superintendent’s job, subject to a required 21-day wait before officially choosing him.
Since retiring in 2001 as the superintendent of the Perryton school district in the northern Texas Panhandle, Kirkland has answered the call to temporary superintendent’s duty no fewer than five times, including three in Snyder.
“They were all challenges,” he recalled.
But some more so than others, Kirkland recalled. He was interim superintendent in the Meadow district near Brownfield for three years. He inherited a district in turmoil, having had two “permanent” superintendents in the two years before his arrival.
Three years makes a rather lengthy interval with no permanent superintendent, Kirkland acknowledged.
After the Meadow school trustees brought him about and things settled down a bit, he said, “they kinda quit looking.” So after his second year, he said, he told them that after one more year, he was gone.
An interim superintendent’s job, he said, “is probably the last you ever take on a handshake.”
Working without a contract gives each side a kind of freedom, he said. If school trustees aren’t happy, “they tell you not to come back.” Conversely, he can decide himself not to come back, he added.
Some of the drawbacks are connected to being temporary. It’s a bit more than a caretaker’s position, but an interim superintendent generally wants to leave major changes to the next person sitting at the desk, he said.
The rule: “Don’t do anything to mess it up for the new superintendent.”
But depending on the time of the year, the temporary leader may have to make significant decisions — such as now.
Coming aboard in May and working until August, Kirkland is required to spearhead planning for the 2011-2112 school year, as well as budgeting for it.
Taking the reins on a short-term basis when you won’t be around long provides another challenge, he said.
“The relationships you build are probably fleeting,” Kirkland said.
But thanks to his two previous stints as Snyder’s interim leader, this has been less of a problem during his most recent gig.
“I enjoy the people, I enjoy the community. And it’s a great school,” Kirkland said.
He was superintendent in Perryton for three years after five years at Texline, another Panhandle town. Before then, he spent 27 years as a teacher, coach and administrator, culminating in the high school principal’s post in Spearman, also in the Panhandle.
Although he doesn’t knock the money, that’s secondary to another incentive, Kirkland said:
“Love of education and being around kids make it worthwhile.”
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