LOWER POTTSGROVE >> William Shirk intends to make the most of his tenure as interim superintendent, whether its three months long, or three years.
“I really appreciate the opportunity I’ve been given by the board and I think one thing I can do right away is to try to foster an air of collaboration in the district,” Shirk said during an interview last week with The Mercury.
Shirk, 56, was named interim superintendent last month after the school board and former Superintendent Shellie Feola mutually agreed to part ways with one year still left on her contract.
How long Shirk – who joined the administrative team as assistant superintendent in January 2014 after eight years as principal of Upper Perkiomen High School – will remain in his post remains an open question.
An attempt at the Aug. 23 school board meeting to begin the search for his replacement was thwarted by a majority vote of the board.
But Shirk shrugs off the uncertainty, saying he has every intention of pressing forward for as much time as he has.
“There are some short-term things I think we can focus on,” he said, identifying greater consultation and input from teachers as one of his first priorities.
“If you want your teachers to have some skin in the game, you have to establish trust, and things have to go in both directions, from the top down and the bottom up,” said Shirk who, having served as Phoenixville High School’s head football coach for 12 years, is fond of sports analogies.
A resident of Phoenixville, where his wife is a school nurse, Shirk said he got his start teacher in Central Littlestown High School, “which is about halfway between Hanover and Gettysburg.”
He holds a bachelors and masters degree from Temple University and received his doctorate at Immaculata University.
A health and physical education teacher for 14 years in Phoenixville, Shirk was an assistant principal at Upper Perkiomen High School for three years, and then took a similar post in Spring-Ford for five before returning to Upper Perk as principal.
He brings a hand’s on style from Upper Perk where, he said, “we had limited resources, so we had to analyze our own data.”
Having seen that work at his previous school building, Shirk said he shared the most recent raw data on student performance not only with the teachers, but also with the school board.
“In relative terms, I just got here, but we have teachers who have been here for decades,” said Shirk. “Why would I not want to tap into that expertise, that resource?”
At last week’s opening day for teachers, Shirk invited both teacher’s union president Megan DeLena to speak, as well as School Board President Rick Rabinowitz.
“And then I had everyone stand up and we all took a step forward together, it was pretty powerful,” said Shirk.
He also wants to put more focus on putting “Pottsgrove’s story out in front of the community,” noting that Pottsgrove High School was recently named a Bronze Medal school by U.S. News and World Report.
“That’s the kind of thing we should be shouting from the roof tops,” said Shirk.
In addition to being as collaborative as possible with teachers, Shirk said he also feels the same way about the community.
“We have to get out into some of the community centers, in Rolling Hills and Walnut Ridge, and convince these families that they have a friend in the school district,” said Shirk. “We all want the same thing – for our children to succeed.”
If there are three things Shirk said he wants the Pottsgrove school community to know about him, “I can tell them that there will always be structures in place, that we will always pay attention to detail and there will always be follow-through.”