The School Board of fast-growing, fast-diversifying Prince William County last night hired the superintendent of an Upstate New York school district with 14,000 students and a small minority population.
Steven L. Walts, 50, who has presided over the Greece, N.Y., schools since July 1998, was awarded a four-year contract in a unanimous vote in closed session to run Northern Virginia's second-largest district, which has a predominantly minority student body.
Steven L. Walts has led the schools of Greece, N.Y., for seven years. Before that, he was an administrator for the Baltimore County schools.
(Heather Charles -- Rochester Democrat And Chronicle)
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"I'm very confident in being able to take the helm. I felt like my entire background led me to this job," Walts said in an interview last night. He cited his experience as director of human resources in the Baltimore County school system and as a school administrator in Wichita, two systems with much larger enrollments than Greece's.
Board Chairman Lucy S. Beauchamp (At Large) said that test scores in the Greece Central School District have improved during Walts's tenure and that the system has experience with specialty schools such as Prince William's. She said she was not concerned that Prince William's enrollment of more than 66,000 is nearly five times as large as that of the system Walts oversees.
Walts, who will start the job July 1, will succeed Edward L. Kelly, 62, who was hired in 1987 and is the longest-serving schools chief in the Washington area. Kelly's recent health problems, including a brain tumor and complications from hernia surgery, left community members and school officials uneasy about prolonging his tenure.
The search for Prince William County's first new superintendent in 18 years was launched late last year after Kelly announced that he was withdrawing his request for a two-year contract extension because board members had told him they wanted a change.
After a salary increase last year, Kelly made $184,266 annually and was the lowest-paid superintendent in the region. Walts said his starting salary will be $215,000.
The board said it conducted its search in secrecy to protect the candidates' job security in their current positions. The job opening attracted 44 applicants from 31 states, including one insider, Associate Superintendent Karen Spillman. Board members interviewed five finalists during the last half of March, and Walts emerged as the top choice, Beauchamp said.
Walts will arrive in a school system that is considerably different from the one he runs. Prince William has 80 schools, compared with 19 in the Greece Central School District.
African Americans make up nearly one-fourth of the Prince William student population and about 5 percent of Greece's student body. Hispanics make up one-fifth of Prince William's enrollment and about 3.5 percent of Greece's.
Walts worked for the Baltimore County schools from 1992 to 1998. Before taking the human resources job, he said last night, he oversaw 28 schools in the system for a year.
The town of Greece, in Monroe County next to Rochester and on Lake Ontario, has a population of 94,000, according to the 2000 Census. Prince William's population is estimated at 350,000.
Walts is coming to a school system competing with neighboring Loudoun and Fairfax counties for teachers, which is increasing the pressure to raise salaries. Like all school systems in the country, Prince William is coping with the need to raise test scores, especially among minorities and other "subgroups" that the federal No Child Left Behind law requires to be on par with white students by 2014.
Walts, who is married and has one daughter, was born in Great Bend, Kan. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees from Wichita State University and a doctorate in education policy and leadership from the University of Maryland.
Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.
