Published Friday, August 30, 2002
By Tom Fontaine
Herald Staff Writer
Wally Blucas, former superintendent of Girard (Pa.) School District and the current president of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, has accepted an administrative position at Kennedy Catholic High School in Hermitage.
Blucas formally accepted a job as director of assessment and research at Kennedy a week ago, said school President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Iacino.
Iacino said Blucas' primary responsibility will be overseeing Kennedy's academic restructuring, which began about two years ago.
The duty has been handled by the school's guidance department, Iacino said.
Iacino did not say how much Blucas will make as a Kennedy administrator, but said Blucas' salary will be covered by a private grant.
The grant is good for one academic year, but could possibly be extended, Iacino said.
Girard School Board members voted earlier this year not to renew Blucas' contract and then voted Monday to accept his resignation due to retirement, a district spokesperson said Thursday.
Blucas had served as superintendent of the district, which sits southwest of Erie, since August 1992, the spokesperson said.
Previously, Blucas had worked in the district as assistant superintendent and high school principal, the spokesperson said.
As Blucas' career at Girard came to a close, his status as president of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association and chairman of PIAA's District 10 became uncertain and a topic of statewide speculation.
The PIAA is the governing body of high school and junior high/middle school sports in Pennsylvania. There are about 1,360 member schools -- about 12 percent of them private -- divided into 11 geographic districts. District 10 is made up of schools in Mercer, Venango, Forest, Warren, Crawford and Erie counties.
In order to hold an administrative post within the PIAA a person must work in a member school district, said Melissa Mertz, PIAA assistant executive director.
"We are certainly glad as a staff that he found a position with another member school, because we felt he has done a good job as president," Ms. Mertz said.
Blucas has been PIAA president since 1999.
Had Blucas not landed a job at a PIAA-member school, Ms. Mertz said, District 10 board members would have had to elect a new chairman and then the PIAA board would have had to elect a new president from the state's 11 district chairmen.
Those decisions could have come as early as October, when the boards are scheduled to meet next, Ms. Mertz said.
Iacino, a District 10 board member, stressed that Blucas' hiring at Kennedy had nothing to do with his status as District 10 chairman or PIAA president.
"I hired him because he's a consummate professional, not because of that other stuff," Iacino said.
Calls to Blucas' home Thursday were not returned.