Superintendent Sanchez announces resignation

Champlain Valley School District Superintendent Rene Sanchez will resign at the end of the school year after three years as head of the district.

The announcement came at the end of the school board’s March 19 meeting, where board members unanimously accepted his resignation. Sanchez, in a letter to staff and faculty, called his resignation “a bittersweet announcement.”

He thanked district employees and said the last three years with the district’s five towns “will always hold a special place in my heart.”

“These are challenging times across the state for public education and I’m very proud for the work that we continue to do for our students and our teachers,” he said.

The resignation will not be effective until the end of the school year, Sanchez said, “so my plan is to be laser focused on the remainder of the school year to make sure that we finish strong.”

“I’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure we pass the budget and get the district in a place where we can hand it off to an interim,” he said.

Board chair Meghan Metzler, on behalf of the board, thanked Sanchez for his service to the district: “We greatly appreciate that he’ll be staying through the end of the school year to continue the work that he’s led and ensure a smooth transition.”

“I’m sad to see him go and excited to find out where he lands,” board member Angela Arsenault said.

In a follow-up interview, Sanchez was mum on why he was resigning or what his future plans are, only saying that it was “the right time for me to move on.”

“What I can say is there are things in the works, but they’re still in the works right now,” he said.

The board had several agenda items at previous board meetings regarding the superintendent’s evaluation, but those meetings were held behind closed doors.

Sanchez first joined the district in July 2021, succeeding Elaine Pinckney after her 15 years with the Champlain Valley school system. He relocated to Vermont with his wife and three kids from South Bend, Ind., where he was the assistant superintendent for operations in charge of the human resources and transportation departments.

Prior to that, he spent six years as a principal of the César E. Chávez High School in Houston.

In the first months in his new role, Sanchez oversaw the return of students to schools after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the district into remote learning. He guided the five-member school district by juggling multiple strategies of deterrence, including mandatory masking and vaccinations, and keeping up with contact tracing.

During this time, the district began making improvements to heating, ventilation and air conditioning in the Charlotte Central School, Hinesburg Community School’s 7th and 8th grade wing and the Shelburne Community School. Masking continued until the district reached an 80 percent vaccination rate.

Sanchez’s initial tenure with the administration was mired by repeated turnover in the district’’s search for a director of diversity, equity and inclusion.

By September of 2021, three months into the job, the district had lost its second director of diversity in 14 months. The first, Rhiannon Kim, quit six days after being hired in July 2020, while the second, Liliana Rodriguez, resigned months later.

Then, in October, five diversity, equity and inclusion coaches at several schools resigned at the same time. During this time, the district was faced with questions over equity practices in the district, including the Champlain Valley Union High School’s process of selecting soccer players for the varsity team that community members alleged was discriminatory.

Sanchez, in an editorial, promised to “improve our knowledge and implementation of practices that support students, staff and others in diversity, equity and inclusion work.”

The district in November 2021 announced it would be contacting with Mass Insight to undertake a formal equity audit to review district practices.

That audit, completely and presented to the board in September 2022, showed marginalized groups in the district have not been achieving comparably high outcomes compared to their peers.

Around the same time, the district hired Dr. Asma Abunaib as the district’s third director of diversity, equity and inclusion. She remains in the job.

Sanchez’s tenure was also marked by continued improvements in the consolidated district, including the creation of a director of data systems position, and the implementation of the first district data warehouse, which integrates all students’ data in one location for use of teachers and administrative faculty.

The district also created its first strategic plan, the first since it fully consolidated seven years ago.

“You’ve done a lot for us here,” Hinesburg board member Keith Roberts said. “You’ve started us on a journey, and I very much appreciate that — we have a long way to go but you laid the groundwork for us to go there.”

Metzler said the school board plans to appoint an interim for the 2024-2025 school year and share more information in coming months.