Hollister School District Superintendent Gary McIntire will retire at the end of this school year, according to an email.
“I’m just looking at age, and the age I am, and thinking that I’ve got other interests and I don’t want to continue to watch my grandchildren get older without being there,” he told the Free Lance on Monday after the Friday announcement.
Although McIntire lives in Hollister during the school week, he must drive six hours to the house he owns with his wife in Susanville, where he was formerly the Susanville School District’s superintendent, according to his LinkedIn account. His seven- and nine-year-old grandchildren also live there.
“My wife and I spend a lot of time on the phone,” he said. “We’ve been doing that for six years.”
McIntire’s contract had extended through 2017, but in an email to employees and friends he announced his last official day of work in the district would be June 30, 2016.
“The idea of going another year just doesn’t seem to make any sense to me any longer,” he told the Free Lance.
He led the district through particularly harrowing times following the Great Recession.
“It was a difficult financial time when I got here. We were able to get that fixed,” he said. “It wasn’t pleasant but we go through that.”
Since then, many things were restored. The district has built back the full school year, restored the regular work calendar for staff and worked to reduce class sizes, the administrator explained.
McIntire added that computer labs didn’t return but the schools now have library media technicians, at least one cart of computers per two classrooms, and new LED screen projectors that allow teachers to give instructions while the lights are on in their rooms.
The district also implemented physical education in the elementary grades, which gives teachers time to develop programs and assessments or to spend intervention time with struggling students, McIntire explained.
The finances are also looking better.
“Now we’re on very, very solid financial footing,” he said.
During his time in Hollister, McIntire has been active in the community with the Chamber of Commerce for about five years; the Hollister Rotary Club for at least three years; and the San Benito County Workforce Investment Board for more than four years.
Measure M, a $28.5 million general obligation bond passed by voters in November of 2014, remains another highlight of his time in the district. The money has fixed leaky roofs, improved campus security, and will upgrade existing sites, though creating a new school is not in the plans for this bond.
In retirement, the superintendent is looking forward to hiking and gardening with his wife. He will also be doing more soccer coaching and things like that, the administrator said.
“I look forward to grandchildren and family things,” he said.
With a rural home, he expects to be working outdoors on fencing and fixing things, he said. He would also like to do a “little bit of travel,” the administrator said.
“I wanted to be sure to notify the Board of my pending retirement with enough notice that they will have plenty of time to find a replacement to begin the 2016-2017 school year in July,” McIntire wrote in the email.
He presented his letter of retirement to the board of trustees Tuesday evening at the regularly scheduled board meeting.
“The Board will most likely meet in early to mid January to discuss the next steps they will take to find a new superintendent for the Hollister School District,” he explained in his email to employees and friends last week.
During a special meeting in early November, the board considered a complaint filed against the superintendent during closed session but did not specify the type of allegation. Based on the findings of an independent investigator, the trustees voted unanimously to dismiss the complaint, according to minutes from the meeting.
That complaint had nothing to do with his decision, “not in the remotest sense,” McIntire said. Those things come up in this line of work and there’s a policy for complaints, he explained.
“The outcome of that was unfounded and it had really no bearing at all,” he said of his choice to leave the Hollister School District.
McIntire jokes that in retirement he may purchase a Peterbilt 379—a big rig—to haul rock and gravel, “but I’m probably not going to actually do that,” he said.
“I kind of enjoyed driving trucks when I was younger,” the administrator added.
