THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 31, 1995 TAG: 9505310472
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: SUPERINTENDENT SHUFFLES
SUFFOLK: Assistant promoted to top post
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
The School Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to promote Assistant Superintendent Joyce H. Trump to superintendent. She will be the first woman to hold that job.
Trump is a district veteran who started her career as a social studies teacher in 1961. She will assume the top job in the 9,500-student district on July 1. The board approved a two-year contract with an annual salary of $76,158.
``I am truly honored that the School Board selected me to lead the school division,'' Trump said Tuesday. She said she wanted to talk further with board members, parents and citizens before discussing any specific plans for the district.
However, she said she would strive to be ``accessible to all members of the community'' and would work to bring more parents, governmental agencies, businesses and other institutions together for the sake of city schoolchildren.
Superintendent Beverly B. Cox III will retire at the end of June.
Trump, 56, was one of seven finalists in a nationwide search for the top job. Her knowledge of the system was a plus, said Board Chairman Arthur D. Smith. Except for a five-year administrative stint in the Franklin district, she has spent her career in Suffolk.
She worked her way up the central office ladder after about a dozen years in the classroom and two years as an assistant principal at the former Suffolk High.
For the past three years, Trump has overseen curriculum and instruction in Suffolk - a growing district that has pushed to overcome the perception that its academic core is decayed by focusing on classroom technology, staff development and early intervention to prevent student failure, especially among the needy. ``What I would like to do is continue along our path for improvement of all instructional programs,'' Trump said.
The fact that she will make history really hasn't fazed her, she said.
``What's important,'' she said, ``is for the board to select an individual, be it male or female, that can provide the leadership the board thinks the system needs.''
Trump is pursuing a doctorate at Old Dominion University. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
Joyce H. Trump is the first woman to head the school system. She
says that fact doesn't faze her.
by CNB