Superintendent Tom Gambrel has announced that he is retiring after over 30 years working for the Bell County School System.

Gambrel started working as a custodian at Bell County Middle School in the mid 1990s before becoming a teacher there in 1998. He eventually moved into an administrative role in the central office where he oversaw transportation and then facilities and Title I programs before becoming superintendent in 2020.

“I just stepped back and evaluated where we were at and where I was with my retirement and felt like this was the right time. No particular reason other than I just felt like I’d maybe like to do something else for a while,” Gambrel said. “I’ve been in education my whole life, so I felt like it may be time to do something new.”

The Bell County Board of Education held a special called meeting on Monday to start the process of finding a new superintendent and laid out what that timeline will look like.

“We’re here today for either a good time or a bad time, a happy time or a sad time, it depends on how you look at it,” Board Chairman Doug Ramsey said in opening the meeting. “Mr. Gambrel has announced his retirement and we have to work on replacing him, not that I think our board wants to but it is what it is.”

Gambrel explained that the Kentucky School Board Association had offered to conduct the search and selection process for $7500. The last search was lead locally by Angela Allen for $3,000.
The board voted to appoint Courtney Howard to head the new search for $3,000. The job involves organizing a screening committee made up of one school board member appointed  by the board chairman, one principal selected by the principals, one teacher selected by the teachers, one classified employee selected by the classified employees and one parent selected by the PTO president, to review the applicants and make a recommendation to the board.

Also approved on Monday was advertising the superintendent vacancy on the Kentucky Education Department’s KETS website.

Ramsey joked that he wanted to take Gambrel to court to make him serve out the last two years of his contract.

“I was dead serious, but I’ve checked and we legally can’t stop him since he’s retiring,” Ramsey said.

The job must be posted for 30 days.

“I never thought I’d be advertising for my own job,” Gambrel said. “I’d love to stay in some ways, but in others I feel like it’s time. I feel like we’ve got a lot accomplished since I’ve been here. We’ve changed a lot of things — culture and facilities-wise. But I feel like I’ve run my course at this point.”

The screening committee will hold its first meeting on April 9, once the vacancy has been posted for 30 days. A tentative schedule has the committee meeting again on April 14 and then meeting with the entire school board on April  21. April 22 and 23 would be for interviews. The screening committee will make a recommendation for one candidate or narrow the field down to a few candidates. The school board also has the option of hiring a new superintendent that was not recommended by the steering committee. The new superintendent is expected to be selected by April 25 and start on May 1.

Also during Monday’s meeting the board created a superintendent consultant position. Gambrel will take this position for two months (through June 30) to help the new superintendent get acclimated to the job.

“It’s a bit of a whirlwind, but I did ask if you all would have somebody in place by May 1 and let me stay on as a consultant to work with them for those first two months,” Gambrel said.

In an interview following Monday’s meeting, Gambrel said he was proud of what the district has accomplished during his five years as superintendent.

“We moved and sold the central office, we’ve bought a fleet of buses that is second to none — I would imagine that we have the best buses on the road in the state,” he said. “We’re completing two projects, one at Bell High and one at Bell Central, to put turf on the baseball and softball fields while adding an auxiliary football and auxiliary soccer field.”

He said he was most proud of the work done to help kids every day.

“I’m proud of the staff and the board for recognizing that and making resources available to help kids — that’s what we’re here for,” Gambrel said. “The buildings and those things are pretty and they’re useful for our kids, but really the impact is made inside the school buildings and in the classrooms where the children are at.”