Newly hired East Tallahatchie School District Superintendent Johnnie L. Vick said he is “excited” about the opportunity here and ready to “work extremely hard” to improve the Charleston schools.
Vick, 55, will officially take over the position July 1.
“The goal, of course, is for East Tallahatchie to become a high-performing school district, but it won’t happen overnight,” Vick said during a Tuesday telephone conversation with The Sun-Sentinel.
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“It just doesn’t work like that,” he continued. “But we’re going to put the things in place — the climate and culture and the resources for the students and the teachers — and just work extremely hard. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Vick’s new contract with ETSD is for two years at a base salary of $97,000.
The hiring of Vick, first reported by The Sun-Sentinel Friday, was officially announced Tuesday morning in a school board statement emailed to the newspaper from ETSD Board of Trustees President Bryant Watson.
While referencing the incoming superintendent’s “notable accolades and qualities,” including “solid” credentials, the board said Vick “will present a wealth of knowledge, experience and successful leadership to the district at multiple levels.”
“We are looking forward to welcoming and collaborating” with him, the school board’s message noted.
Vick, a native of Smithdale, located in Amite County in southwest Mississippi, is a graduate of Liberty High School, Southwest Mississippi Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi, where in 1988 he received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Management.
For 15 years, Vick worked in retail management with J.C. Penney, Stage/Goody’s and Walmart before deciding on a career in education.
He went back to school, and in 2006 he received a master’s degree in history teacher education from Delta State University.
Vick added an educational specialist degree in educational administration and supervision in 2008 and is presently working on his doctorate in educational administration and supervision at DSU.
According to the McComb Enterprise-Journal, Vick spent 5½ years as a high school teacher, then four years — from 2010-2014 — as principal of I.T. Montgomery Elementary School in Mound Bayou in Bolivar County. There, under his leadership, the school improved from a Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) state accountability rating of F to B in four years.
In May 2014, he was hired as superintendent of the D-rated North Bolivar Consolidated School District, where he was selected from among 13 applicants in a superintendent search led by the Mississippi School Boards Association (MSBA).
From 2008 to 2016, while he was holding down the other full-time positions in Bolivar County schools, Vick also served as an adjunct history professor at Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale.
In June 2016, Vick resigned as North Bolivar superintendent, still rated at a D, to accept the superintendent’s post at South Pike School District in Magnolia. Pike County is adjacent to Vick’s home county of Amite.
South Pike’s state accountability rating was D in 2017, dropped to an F in 2018 but rebounded to a D in 2019.
In 2019, the South Pike school board, in a 3-2 split vote, opted not to renew Vick’s contract.
For the past two years, he has been principal at Leland High School in Washington County and also served as a dual enrollment instructor for Mississippi Delta Community College.
ETSD hired the MSBA to conduct a superintendent search after third-year superintendent Dr. Darron Edwards announced in January that he would not return when his contract expires June 30.
MSBA advertised the Charleston position on its website and then accepted and vetted information submitted by 13 applicants.
After MSBA presented their findings to the school board on May 17, the trustees whittled down the list of hopefuls to four finalists. Those four men were interviewed on Monday, June 14, after which the board voted to offer the job to Vick. He reportedly was the only finalist who had previous experience as a superintendent.
In Tuesday’s statement, the ETSD school board said Vick “was recognized and complimented” by MSBA “as a result of his work to excel along the accountability growth model in previous districts in his role as superintendent and principal.”
In 2019, for a second straight year, ETSD graded F in state accountability ratings. Individually, both Charleston Elementary and Charleston Middle schools likewise were F-rated. Charleston High was a D.
After three straight years as a failing district, the state can swoop in and take control of school operations at the local level.
Due to COVID-19, MDE ruled that 2020 and 2021 standardized state tests results would not officially count, granting a reprieve to districts, like ETSD, that were on the bubble.
During the upcoming 2021-22 school session, however, state tests and other factors that figure into accountability rankings will count once again.
