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The United School District board of directors approved Teresa Young as the district’s new superintendent during a special board meeting Tuesday.
In a 7-0 vote, with board treasurer James Fry and director Aaron Conway absent, Young was approved to serve a four-year term as the district’s superintendent at a starting annual salary of $128,000 beginning July 1.
“She has big shoes to fill with Dr. Parkins leaving,” said board President Eric Matava.
The district’s current superintendent, Barbara Parkins, will retire at the end of June. The board accepted her resignation during a special board meeting May 18.
Parkins said she is eager to get some rest after working more than four decades as an educator and superintendent.
“I’m going to take a rest,” Parkins said. “I’ve done this since December of 1980. That makes it 41½ years ... in two different places, United and another school district.”
Matava said that Young was an excellent fit for the role given her years of experience in similar districts.
“We’re excited about (Young’s) background, her experience and the passion she brings for education,” Matava said. “And she has experience in smaller community school districts, so we think she’ll be a great, great fit for United.”
Young is leaving her role as superintendent at Keystone School District, in Clarion County, for the United position. Prior to working as superintendent at Keystone, she worked for 4½ years as superintendent for the Weatherly Area School District, in Carbon County.
Young said she applied for the superintendent role at United because she wanted to get back to Indiana County.
“This is an area that I’ve been in for the last 25 years,” Young said, “so I was excited to have the opportunity to apply here, and I’m even more thrilled to have the position.”
Young said she wants to get a better idea of how to serve the district by taking some time to learn more about the district and community.
“United (has) a great reputation for being a good school district,” she said. “I’m excited to be working with the teachers, (and) I’m excited to get to know the students (and) community.”
Young said her top priority going into the superintendent role will be looking at learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The top priority is going to be how much, exactly, learning loss did the kids in,” she said, “and taking a look at that data and seeing (if) we have the right programs or right services in place to meet the needs of our kids or (if) we need to look at providing some more tutoring or a different, more intensive program.”