Valley View School Board Approves New District Superintendent

ROMEOVILLE, IL — Members of the Valley View School District Board of Education voted on Monday night to approve Rachel Kinder as the district's next Superintendent. Kinder currently serves as the district's Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services and will assume her new office on July 1, 2020. The district's current Superintendent, Dr. James Mitchem, is retiring from the position at the end of this school year.

"I am humbled, honored and blessed to be standing - or sitting - before you this evening, being charged with leading the staff, students and community of Valley View School District into a new decade," Kinder said.

The vote to approve Kinder was almost unanimous, only board member Sally Guilbo voted 'no.' Among the public in attendance, Kinder's approval was immediately popular; she received several standing ovations over the course of the evening. Both Kinder and Mitchem offered short comments on the approval. Kinder thanked her family and friends for their support, and recommitted herself to serving the Valley View School District community. Mitchem congratulated the board members for being what he called 'trendsetters,' hearkening back to his own appointment as the district's first African-American Superintendent.

"I was honored to be named the Superintendent for a myriad of reasons; I was most proud the board would be progressive enough to name as the first African-American Superintendent in the history of our district... fast-forward to tonight, and again this current board has proven themselves to be trendsetters by naming Rachel Kinder as... the first ever female Superintendent in the history of Valley View," Mitchem said. "That deserves a round of applause."

Mitchem has served as the district's Superintendent for nine years and through several flares of controversy; he has been an educator for about four decades. He said he chose to retire from the position partly because he felt tired from being in education for so long, and partly because he felt Valley View students would benefit from having some new blood in the Superintendent's office. He first announced his retirement in June of 2019.

"It's like when you're running a race, you recognize when you're getting near the end," he said, "and you're getting to that point where you feel that you can't put forth your best effort... I think it's in the best interests of our kids in the district that we have a Superintendent who's fresh and who's new and has new ideas."

Mitchem said that of the candidates considered to succeed him, Kinder was chosen for her aptitude as an administrator and because she is already familiar with the district's inner workings.

"Rachel Kinder has worked as my assistant principal at Bolingbrook High School... She's worked as assistant superintended since I've taken on this job," he said. "I believe that our teachers and our community and our Board of Education are, for the most part, satisfied with our direction and our progress. Therefore, I don't think that they felt the need to make any dramatic changes in leadership, because I believe that they think consistency and continuity in our direction is what's most important."

But not everyone was happy with the decision.

Guilbo, as the only board member to vote 'no,' criticized the selection process behind Kinder's approval. She made references to 'events' that happened during the selection, but declined to go into specific details.

"I'm very concerned with the whole procedure that we took to choose our new Superintendent," Guilbo said. "Events that happened or occurred along the way; one of the big ones was 'rush rush rush,' and I felt some of it was haphazardly, 'let's just get this over with, just get it done...' How the votes were tallied, I have concerns with that."

Guilbo also voiced concerns over abuse of power, particularly regarding administration with family working in the district.

"The issue is that we have instances where there are people that are directly responsible for evaluations and raises of members for their families and [are] in power," she said, "and I don't think it's fair to other people that work alongside in those situations... it's happened more than once and I think our board needs to take a look at some policies that we could put into place to make sure there's not abuse of powers."

Guilbo's words, though she claimed she did not intend them as a personal attack, incensed at least one member of the board, some of the public in attendance, and Superintendent Mitchem.

"I just want to say as one of the seven elected up here, that it's our fault that we feel that all this is happening in our district," board member Elizabeth Campbell said, before further suggesting that board members hold a private workshop to "get [their] act together."

"The perception that this administration, this board does not have policies specific to hiring practices is just flat inaccurate; I want to make that clear," Mitchem added later. "Secondly, member Guilbo, you indicated that your comments were not personal. But I want you to know that I took them very personally. Because the assumptions you made about nepotism, whether you said that directly or not, was clear to me."

After the meeting concluded, both Kinder and Mitchem told Patch they were cognizant of Guilbo's concern of nepotism - Kinder's husband Derek Kinder is the principal of Romeoville High School - but said there were mechanisms in place to prevent it.

"The idea that we would make a decision based on relationships is simply false, that is not a factor at all," Kinder said. "We have a system in place for evaluation that evaluates performance and outcomes for all of our leaders, and that speaks for itself... If an administrator's not doing well and the data does not reflect that they're getting results and the staff's voice does not reflect that things are going well, there's no way that we would provide coverage or protection."

Putting that issue aside, Kinder said that one of her priorities as Superintendent would be a "revisioning of what a graduate from Valley View looks like."

"[A priority] is the revisioning of what a graduate from Valley View looks like and what are those key priorities," she said, "so that we have a real clear focus on where our efforts should be focused and so that we're on the same page with our larger community. I think that is an area of opportunity that is in need."