SOUTH WHIDBEY: School leadership changes in store (SWR)

Luisa Loi reports from the South Whidbey School District for the South Whidbey Record.

Changes are ahead for South Whidbey School District leadership with the assistant superintendent retiring this year and the superintendent retiring next year. Both have been longtime fixtures in the district.

Superintendent Jospehine [sic] Moccia, who has been the district’s superintendent for 13 years, will retire in 2025. Her base salary is more than $200,000.

The South Whidbey School District will no longer have an assistant superintendent once Dan Poolman retires, according to Director of Communications Kristina Macarro.

The assistant superintendent position will cease to exist as it was reduced in pay and responsibility and simplified to a director of finance role, Macarro wrote in an email to The Record. According to his contract approved in 2022, his annual base salary is $192,690, which has since increased by the consumer price index.

They Said It

In an email to The South Whidbey Record, she said she will continue to live on South Whdbey [sic], though she hasn’t made any other plans.

Currently, she wrote, the district is beginning the process to find a search firm to hire her successor. She suspects the superintendent search might begin this summer and end in March 2025, she wrote.

Moccia said she has enjoyed her time working for the district and appreciates the students, staff and the “very thoughtful and analytic school board.” Though she looks forward to retiring, leaving feels bittersweet.