By VIRGINIA SHANK
Tribune Chronicle
WARREN - As the city school board prepares to accept the resignation of its superintendent, another school district is considering naming him to its top post.
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Warren Schools Superintendent Bruce Thomas sent his notice of resignation on Monday.
Warren City School Board of Education President Regina Patterson said the district received notice of Bruce W. Thomas' resignation on Monday. She confirmed that "it's the board's intention to accept" that resignation at a special meeting at noon Thursday - almost a year after he was hired and with two years remaining on his contract. The resignation is effective July 31.
The board plans to name an interim superintendent at that meeting and begin the process of initiating a new superintendent search.
"That's really all we have to say right now," Patterson said after a board meeting on Tuesday. She declined to elaborate and said the board will discuss the matter further on Thursday.
Patterson would not say whether Thomas provided a reason for his resignation notice. Other school board members said they had not yet received a copy of the correspondence but planned to review it as soon as possible.
Also on Tuesday, the Morning Journal in Lorain reported that Thomas is one of seven final candidates for the Lorain City Schools superintendent's post. That school board announced plans to interview Thomas and the other candidates this week.
Telephone messages left at the Lorain Board of Education Office by a Tribune Chronicle reporter seeking comment from school officials on Tuesday were not returned.
Warren officials said Thomas has been on vacation. He did not attend Tuesday's board meeting and was not available for comment.
Warren officials indicated they were not surprised that Thomas was seeking employment elsewhere.
The news of his resignation came about a month after his girlfriend, Kristen Lewis, lost her job as coordinator of student counseling and family engagement at Warren through a reduction in force move by the school board. Lewis' position was created in November under Thomas' reign.
Just minutes before Lewis' layoff, Thomas rescinded a retire / rehire request he had previously made to the school board. Thomas said he becomes eligible for retirement next month.
The school district officially named Thomas to replace former superintendent Kathryn Hellweg in July 2011 after the district agreed to pay Hellweg more than $100,000 to walk away from her contract five months before it was to expire. Thomas was given a three-year contract
Thomas left his post as superintendent at Marietta City Schools less than a year into his three-year contract there to accept the job at Warren. Upon arriving in Warren, Thomas said he planned to stay at the school district "for the long haul." At the time, he said he was leaving Marietta to be closer to his ailing father.
Before Marietta, he was a regional superintendent of Cleveland Metropolitan Schools for one year. Previously he was school- improvement coordinator with the Ohio Department of Education for one year and held positions with the South Euclid-Lyndhurst and Maple Heights school districts dating back to 1986.
His first job, in 1983, was counselor with the Southern Arizona Behavioral Health Clinic.
Last month, Warren school board members, who recently started working on the superintendent's first annual evaluation, said they were concerned that Thomas had not yet met a term of his contract that called for him to become a school district resident by July.