The Douglas County Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to hire Dr. Gordon Pritz. He will take over the position following the retirement of Don Remillard, who has been with the Douglas system for 38 years and has served as superintendent since 2003.
“I’m certainly very honored,” Pritz said Monday night. “I feel very blessed to be able to step into a great situation in a fine county. I look forward to running the (Douglas) school system.”
Pritz said he will submit a letter to Cobb Superintendent Fred Sanderson this morning, requesting to be released from his contract. Once the Cobb school board approves his release, which Pritz hopes will be considered Thursday, he will begin his new job on May 1. He will request to be released on April 30, he said.
Pritz, who returned to Cobb County in 2006, previously served as the assistant superintendent at Marietta City Schools. He was also the high school principal in that district. He began his career in 1977 as a sixth grade teacher in Indiana and came to Cobb County in 1979 as an elementary school teacher. Pritz taught and served as the head wrestling coach and assistant football coach at both Wheeler and McEachern high schools. He also worked in Paulding County schools. He has been in his executive position with CCSD since 2006.
“My background has afforded me the opportunity of working in three, very different districts these past 30 years, first as a teacher at all levels then as an administrator,” Pritz said.
According to the Douglas school system, Pritz “has demonstrated results in both small and large systems in closing the achievement gap.”
The Douglas County School System has 32 schools, including four high schools, and serves more than 24,000 students. It employs about 3,300 full-time positions, including more than 1,800 teachers. By comparison, Cobb’s school system, which is the second largest in Georgia, has 114 schools, including 16 high schools. The local district’s roughly 8,300 teachers educate more than 106,000 students.
Pritz said he will eventually relocate to Douglas County, which is southwest of Cobb. However, as a west Cobb resident, Pritz said it will actually be a shorter commute to his new job.
The retiring Douglas County superintendent earns about $236,000 annually. Pritz earns about $140,000 per year.
Last May, when Pritz’s contract was up for renewal, then-Chairman Abraham was the only board member to vote against extending the associate superintendent’s contract. The vote was 6-1. At the time, Abraham said he voted against extending the contract because he wanted to see someone with more experience in the business of construction and operations in that role.
Pritz told the Journal in March that he had set his sights on becoming a superintendent of a school district about five years ago, but claimed he has been fairly selective with his applications. He said Douglas County is “a good fit with my talent and skills.”
Pritz beat out two other finalists for the Douglas job — including another local school district executive, Dale Gaddis, one of Cobb’s six area superintendents. Gaddis has served in several executive positions in Cobb and, at one time, held the same position as Superintendent Fred Sanderson when the two were the system’s high school executive directors. He has been District 2 superintendent, which includes Campbell and Osborne high schools, since the inception of the area superintendent positions in 2002.
MDJ Assistant News Editor Brandon Wilson contributed to this report
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To the Pot Stirrers:
Please quit stirring the pot with your lies. You are going to cause the board to want to wash their hands of all of us as bus drivers. You will ruin the school system along with the lives of over 1000 drivers. As a single mom, I need my pay and benefits!!!! This is a good job, most of us still care and love our jobs. Are you going to feed my son when your lies cost me my job due to privatization?
I HOPE U HAVE LEARNED AND WILL DO BETTER OUT AT
DOUGLAS CO SCHOOLS. GOOD LUCK! P/S PLEASE TAKE MIKE WARNER WITH U!!!
Congratulations, Gordon and glad you could get out of the hellhole of CCSD. We did years ago and are thankful for our wise decision, which also gave us the opportunity to know you.