MEDFORD, Ore. – Medford School District is hiring, their current superintendent, Brian Shumate announced today that he’s leaving to head back east.
“Very, very proud of the work we’ve done, but you know life happens and it’s time to make a change,” Shumate said.
The Medford School District is saying goodbye to one of their own this week, superintendent Brian Shumate will be moving back east to become the superintendent of Troup county schools in LaGrange, Georgia. He says the biggest motivator for him in this decision was family.
“Some life events happened, we started to feel the need to be back on that side of the country where I could be back close to family within a few hours drive,” he said.
Shumate was hired back in 2014 after a lengthy teacher’s strike. This will be his second cross country move in five years.
“If you stand back and look at the whole body of work I’m very proud. You put your heart and soul into something and you watch it flourish, that’s very rewarding,” he said.
His leave means the Medford school district now has shoes to fill. They’re already in the process of finding a replacement. On Thursday, the district hired an outside company to help them find their new superintendent
“We’ve had a really good experience with our last superintendent. We want to have that same experience with this and so we want community input we want the various stakeholders to have a say,” Medford school board member, Cynthia Wright said.
Despite his distance Shumate says, he’ll still be watching even if it’s from over 2500 miles.
“Please trust that I would not be in this position to go out and compete, and I have full confidence that I could compete in any arena in this country if it were not for the work we’ve done here.”
Shumate will finish out the school year, and start work in LaGrange on July first. Although he won’t have any official role in choosing the new superintendent, he says he’ll be there in an advisory capacity.
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