Shelton’s school board tapped Christopher Clouet, the former superintendent of public schools in New London and White Plains, N.Y. to lead the district after its current chief resigns.
Clouet had served as superintendent of the Tarrytown, N.Y. school district in Westchester County until June.
Earlier this year, his name was floated as a candidate to be the new head of the state of Connecticut’s Department of Education.
Shelton’s current superintendent, Freeman Burr, announced in May that he planned to resign Jan. 1 because he was frustrated with the annual fight to get more money for the school system.
Burr was hired by the school board in June 2009, and has officially been superintendent since August 2009, succeeding Robin Willink, who had served in the post for seven years.
Shelton’s Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday to give Clouet a two-and-a-half-year contract with yearly compensation of $195,000 during a special meeting at the school district’s central offices.
The motion to appoint Clouet is subject to Clouet passing a background check and the school district confirming his certification.
Clouet will officially start Jan. 1, when Burr resigns. Between now and the beginning of 2016 he will come to Shelton a couple of days a week to familiarize himself with the district, Board of Education Chairman Mark Holden said after the meeting.
Burr is earning a $168,795 salary this year, though his total compensation, including things like vehicle expenses and an annuity, is $198,100. His contract was due to run through 2016 – 2017.
After the vote, Clouet, 57, said he was attracted to the job because Shelton is such a “vibrant community.”
“There’s some really great work going on in the school district and I look forward to continuing that work,” Clouet said.
Clouet introduced himself to the district at the school board’s regular meeting Wednesday by reading a brief statement, during which he said it’s already clear to him that Shelton is a proud community that doesn’t settle for the status quo.
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Asked if he had an outlook or plan to address what has become a yearly battle between the schools and the city for funding, Clouet said he’ll try to identify grants that could supplement traditional school funding methods — i.e. taxpayer money, and the state’s Education Cost Sharing grant.
Beyond that, he pledged to work with city leaders.
“There’s different ways to look at resources,” Clouet said. “I look forward to working with the mayor and with the Board of Aldermen, with our school board and the city committees, etc. to be frugal but be passionate about the work and come up with different ways to use resources that makes sense for everybody.”
Holden said the school district received a total of 15 inquiries for the superintendent’s position, and nine official applications.
Clouet was “head and shoulders” above the rest of the candidates, he said, and the only one with previous experience as a superintendent.
Background
Born in New York City and raised in Milford, Clouet, who is married with three children and four grandchildren, has been a school administrator for more than 20 years.
He said he is currently looking to relocate to a home in Shelton.
From 1997 to 2001, he was the principal of Bristol Central High School. Prior to that he held administrative positions in Hamden and Manchester.
He left Bristol to become superintendent of the Thomaston public schools, a position he held until February 2004, when he was appointed superintendent in New London.
In July 2009, he left New London to become schools chief in White Plains, N.Y. In 2013, he was appointed superintendent in Tarrytown, NY.
Clouet left that post in June, according to The Journal News.
He had been earning a salary of $253,000 in Tarrytown.
For the past three months he has worked as an education consultant, according to his LinkedIn page. He has also been an adjunct professor of education at Columbia University’s Teachers College since 2010.
Clouet earned a doctorate in education from Columbia in 1996.
Prior to becoming an administrator, he taught second grade in a Bridgeport magnet school, as well as serving as a high school teacher in Bridgeport.
Earlier this year, Connecticut’s largest teachers union, the Connecticut Education Association, put forward Clouet as the ideal replacement for Stefan Pryor, who led the state’s education department under Gov. Dannel Malloy, and was often a lightning rod for controversial education reforms advocated by Malloy during his first term in office.
Click here to read more from a story by the New Haven Register’s Jennifer Swift.
The state post ultimately went to Dianna Wetzell, formerly the state education department’s chief academic officer.
