LOWER POTTSGROVE >> It doesn’t look like former Pottsgrove School District Superintendent Shellie Feola will be collecting unemployment any time soon.
Just two weeks after Feola and Pottsgrove parted ways as part of a “mutual” agreement, the Delaware County Intermediate Unit has announced Feola’s hiring as its assistant executive director.
In some ways, Feola is following in the footsteps of her predecessor, Bradley Landis, who left Pottsgrove in 2012 to become the assistant executive director of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit.
“Shellie is a proven leader with a wealth of knowledge and experience in delivering high quality educational services,” Executive Director Maria Edelberg, said in a press release. “We look forward to working with her as we continue the important work of our mission and vision.”
“I am eager to begin a new and exciting position and to help make a difference for the students of Delaware County,” Feola said in the release.
She will begin her new role with DCIU on Sept. 12.
Feola, who was promoted from assistant superintendent to the top post in Pottsgrove in 2012, left the district one year before the expiration of her five-year contract last month.
The Pottsgrove School Board named Assistant Superintendent William Shirk as the interim superintendent and put off a decision on searching for a replacement.
Pottsgrove will be paying Feola about for the remainder of her pay and unused sick leave and vacation time $130,000.
In her new post, Feola will be paid $183,000, said Adriene Irving, director of legislative and community services for the Delaware County Intermediate Unit.
The Delaware County Intermediate Unit is one of Pennsylvania’s 29 regional educational agencies. Established in 1970 by the state legislature, IUs are charged with providing services in seven areas best offered on a regional basis. They include special education, curriculum and instructional support, professional development, technical education, services to non-public schools and technology.
DCIU serves more than 70,000 school-aged students and more than 6,000 educators on a regional basis.
During her time at Pottsgrove, Feola also served as the Superintendent of Record for the Western Montgomery Career and Technical Center. In addition to her tenure as assistant superintendent, for Pottsgrove, Feola was Director of Human Resources in the Pennridge School District, middle school Principal in Ohio for seven years, and began her career as a teacher in southern Florida for both Broward and Dade County school districts.
Feola holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Edinboro University, and a master’s degree from Florida Atlantic University. She obtained her Superintendent’s Letter of Eligibility from Ohio in 2002 and from Pennsylvania in 2004 and she is currently completing her doctorate in Educational Leadership from Gwynedd Mercy University.
During her time at Pottsgrove, Feola oversaw the implementation of a full-day kindergarten, the district’s controversial re-alignment of elementary education into a “grade centers” model and the distribution of iPads and computers to all students.
More recently, under the new school board, she has clashed publicly with board members over spending and the pace of improvements.
