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Warren board favors Marietta educator for chief
Photo
Dr. Bruce Thomas
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Though the choice doesn’t become official until the school board reaches an agreement on a contract, members of the Warren Board of Education want Dr. Bruce Thomas of Marietta, Ohio, to be their next superintendent.
The school district issued a press release Tuesday saying Thomas is their top choice, after a third interview with him Monday.
The board was still considering Thomas and three other candidates prior to a closed-door board of education meeting Monday.
Kevin Stringer, Warren City Board of Education president, said the board will talk to Thomas about a contract in the days or weeks to come, but it’s not certain how long that will take.
Thomas, superintendent of the Marietta city schools for the past year, was regional superintendent of Cleveland Metropolitan School District for one year before that and worked one year for the Ohio Department of Education as school improvement coordinator.
In that job, he worked with Akron City Schools, Cuyahoga Falls City Schools, Twinsburg City Schools, Barberton City Schools, Southeast Local Schools and Kent City Schools, according to his r sum .
He worked 20 years for the South Euclid-Lyndhurst City Schools in Lyndhurst, Ohio — coordinator of alternative education five years, coordinator of career-based intervention five years and director/school counselor for 10 years.
He also was director of school counseling at the Maple Heights City Schools for four years and counselor/therapist at Southern Arizona Behavioral Health Clinic in Tucson for four years starting in 1983.
Thomas has extensive experience as College of Education lecturer and adjunct faculty member with a variety of Northeast Ohio universities, such as Cleveland State, University of Akron, Walsh University and John Carroll University.
Some of the professional and scholarly presentations Thomas lists on his r sum fit in well with the objectives board members and community members hoped to find in the next superintendent, such as “sensitivity to all student needs” and “sensitivity to cultural issues.”
Thomas gave a presentation in San Antonio in January 2010 on keeping alternative learners in school and one in Columbus in March 2000 on “interviewing young children in crisis.”
He also has given presentations on homophobia, inclusion, depressive illness in families, post-traumatic stress disorder in young children, and children of divorced parents.
Thomas could not be reached at his office in Marietta on Tuesday. None of the Warren school board members contacted Tuesday by telephone or text returned messages.
Aaron Schwab, communications director for the Warren city schools, said he doesn’t know whether Thomas was in Warren on Tuesday.