Fritsch announces retirement as superintendent of Pendleton School District

Published 6:00 pm Friday, November 19, 2021

PENDLETON — Chris Fritsch is retiring as the superintendent of the Pendleton School District effective June 30, 2022, the end of the school year.

Fritsch made the announcement to the Pendleton School Board during a brief meeting Wednesday night, Nov. 17. The board in a voice vote accepted the resignation.

In a letter to the board, Fritsch said it was with mixed emotions that he submitted his notice to retire.

“I would like to thank you, the current board, and the board members who hired me in 2017 for the opportunity and privilege to work in this fine district,” according to the letter. “I have been honored to have worked not only an outstanding board, but also with some of the best administrative and instructional staff on my 41 years in education. I will remember my time here fondly and consider it among the highlights of my career.”

He also explained he was making the decision now so the board has time to determine how best to move forward.

After the meeting, Fritsch said he is parting Pendleton on good terms, a sharp distinction from the Adrian School District and Newberg School District, where board firing of superintendents stirred controversy.

“This is a great district,” Fritsch said, “and I want to do whatever I can to help them find the very best person to join this team.”

In a statement he sent shortly after the board meeting, Fritsch tried to head off any rumors about the circumstances surrounding his departure.

“Hopefully this will remain low-key with little attention,” he wrote. “Once it becomes public there may be a few who claim to know the real story or misrepresent truth and reality. Unfortunately for them, there is no backstory, there is no conspiracy, it’s just my time.”

In an interview after the meeting, Fritsch said he had always been upfront with the board that he intended to stay five to seven years before retiring. With Fritsch originally hired by the district in 2017, he will have met his goal by the time he leaves the district on June 30, 2022.

With school boards and superintendents across the state sometimes clashing over curriculum and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fritsch said he wanted to make clear the decision was purely about his desire to retire. Although he admitted that navigating the district through the pandemic the past two years has been challenging, he said it was not a factor in his retirement.

In his statement, Fritsch praised the administrators, teachers and community members he worked with and added that announcing his retirement now put the district in a good position to hire a consultant and identify his successor.

Lieuallen said Fritsch informed her and other executive members last week about his decision. She added Fritsch always had been transparent about his timeline, with the board hoping it extended closer to the seven-year mark.

The district hired Fritsch to succeed former Superintendent Andy Kovach, who resigned after less than a year on a job and a poorly rated evaluation from the school board.

Prior to moving to Pendleton, Fritsch spent nearly his entire career at the Longview School District in southwestern Washington, about 50 miles north of Portland. While in Longview, Fritsch worked as teacher, principal and central office administrator, culminating in a position as Longview’s assistant superintendent.

Fritsch already had been a finalist for several superintendent positions across Washington, but he broke through in a 21-candidate field to land the job in Pendleton.

Prior to the pandemic, Fritsch helped lead the district’s effort to identify how to spend new funding made available by the state’s Student Success Act, which led to new teachers and support staff focused on mental health and behavior. Fritsch also made his mark at the building level, replacing principals at Sherwood Heights Elementary School, Washington Elementary School, McKay Creek Elementary School and Pendleton High School as vacancies arose.

Lieuallen said the next step for the district is to hire a search firm to help find Pendleton’s next superintendent. She added that the board’s executive committee — Vice Chair Dale Freeman, board member Julie Muller and herself — will begin looking for a firm and hope to have one hired within the next few weeks.

After soliciting applications, holding interviews and narrowing down the field to a set of finalists, Lieuallen said the board intends to make a hire in the spring, well before Fritsch’s retirement date.

— East Oregonian news editor Phil Wright contributed to the article.