When March 20 rolls around, Columbus Municipal School District will have two interim superintendents.
Dennis Dupree was appointed the interim superintendent of CMSD after the abrupt resignation of former Superintendent Cherie Labat in August. He took over at the beginning of September, and his contract was for 117 days, which will end March 19, CMSD Public Information Officer Mary Pollitz told The Dispatch.
In order to have someone responsible for legal and day-to-day operations in the district, the board on Thursday approved assistant superintendents Craig Chapman and Shernise Wilson to become joint interim superintendents as of March 20 until a permanent superintendent is hired.
“Their duties will be all of the duties carried out by a superintendent as set out in Mississippi statutory law,” board president Yvonne Cox said. “They will work together to split the duties, so there will not be duplication of their efforts. … (Wilson) will handle curriculum as she currently does, and (Chapman) will handle operations and support services.”
Dupree retired in 2019 after serving 12 years as superintendent at Clarksdale School District. Before that, he spent 15 years with CMSD, starting as a classroom teacher in 1992 and serving as interim superintendent in 2007 before leaving for Clarksdale.
Cox told The Dispatch Dupree’s contract could not be extended until a permanent superintendent was hired because of his retirement limiting the number of days he can work.
The district is paying Dupree $87,500 as interim superintendent, and both Chapman and Wilson will see a pay bump of about $27,000 during the time they are interim superintendents — based on the prorated $175,000 salary schedule for a superintendent.
Cox, though she will be replaced by former mayor Robert Smith when her board term expires next week, said the board of trustees want a new superintendent to be hired before July 1.
In an email to The Dispatch, Dupree said he is grateful for the opportunity to serve the district again even after his 2019 retirement.
“I am thankful and forever grateful to the CMSD Board of Trustees for having enough faith in me to allow me to serve,” Dupree wrote. “I am equally grateful to the entire administrative staff, teachers, support personnel, classified personnel, parents and students for being welcoming and for their acceptance of me. Each group has been tremendously supportive. That made the work I had to do much easier.
“Though I will be gone from the district soon, I will not be gone from the community,” he continued. “I have a vested interest here because it is the place my family has called home for many years. My wife and I have been homeowners here since 1995. From our vantage point, as veteran educators, we know that when schools thrive and improve, the community does also.”
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