Superintendent E. Wayne Gent talks with students at The Conservatory School at North Palm Beach.
The surprise news that Palm Beach County Schools Superintendent Wayne Gent plans to step down puts leaders of the county’s public school system on their heels.
Gent’s replacement will be the fourth superintendent in four years. Already, people are speculating about who will take his place at the top.
School board members will almost certainly conduct a national search, but in the meantime the names of longtime players like former Superintendent Art Johnson and School Board Chairman Chuck Shaw are likely to be bandied about.
Gent isn’t expected to step down until June, when his contract expires. During the next five months, a lot of attention will be paid to how he ran the school district during his three years at the helm.
During his tenure, the district’s rating fell from an A to a B, matching the grades of Miami-Dade and Broward counties. But the district still has a higher state score than either county, and one that equals Martin County’s.
More students are fleeing to charter schools, but the county’s graduation rate is higher than the statewide rate and rising.
Some school board members have criticized Gent’s leadership, but others defend his record, saying he built bridges to the business community and produced results.
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