The Baldwin County Board of Education has a new president for the first time in more than two years after Norm Moore stepped down from the role during a special meeting held in Loxley.
Board members unanimously elected Vice President Shannon Cauley, who represents District 7, to take over as president. “I think we are going in a positive direction and I want to continue that,” Cauley said following the meeting.
Moore had led the board since November 2012, a tenure that grew increasingly difficult in its final months following the failure of a property tax referendum on March 31. That vote’s defeat left the school system facing a budget shortfall of nearly $8 million beginning in 2017, and some community members had publicly called for Moore to step aside in the aftermath. Moore, however, said his decision was unrelated to the board’s recent challenges.
“This has to do with personal things that I have to accomplish in my life,” Moore said after the meeting. “They have really nothing to do with anything that’s occurring on the board.”
Moore read a letter to fellow board members and Superintendent Robbie Owen, submitted the day before the meeting, thanking colleagues for the opportunity to serve and saying he looked forward to continuing as a regular board member. He indicated he intends to serve out the remainder of his six-year term, which along with Cauley’s runs through 2016.
District 5 representative Angie Swiger was elected vice president following Cauley’s move to the board’s lead seat. “I would like to thank you, Mr. Moore, for your service to the board as president,” Swiger said. “You’ve taken us through some difficult times.” District 2 representative David Tarwater echoed the sentiment and voiced confidence in Cauley’s leadership going forward.
Cauley, who has represented the district covering Spanish Fort since 2010, moved quickly into the board’s most pressing task: finding a new superintendent. Owen, who has served as superintendent, is set to resign at the end of July and return to Rockwell Elementary, where he served as principal for more than 17 years before taking the district’s top job. Owen had originally planned to leave June 30 but agreed to stay on an extra month to give the board more time to search for a permanent replacement rather than naming an interim superintendent.
“I think we are in a time crunch,” Cauley said of the search. “We do need to find somebody.”