McCracken Superintendent Brian Harper Resigns

The McCracken County School system is now looking for a new superintendent.

At an emergency called meeting Friday afternoon, the board voted unanimously to accept the resignation of Superintendent Brian Harper, effective Saturday.

The board also voted to declare a vacancy in the position and voted to contract with the Kentucky School Boards Association to get their help in hiring a new superintendent for a term beginning July 1. 

Following these actions, the board went into executive session to discuss the possibility of appointing an acting superintendent, but when they returned from executive session the board took no further action.

Board Chair Steve Shelby said the board has made initial contact with several people regarding the position and are waiting to hear back from them.

"This is a pretty big job, so you can't expect someone to say, 'oh yeah, I'll be there tomorrow.' We will call another meeting and confirm whichever person we come to. We cannot discuss who was contacted, but we're gonna be on it and we hope to have this resolved next week."

After the meeting, Shelby said he wished the best to Harper and his family, and said Harper, "always seemed to have the best interest of the children and staff," in mind. Harper was not at the meeting. He was named superintendent in May 2017.

Shelby said he didn't know if Harper would be at work on Saturday, and said there was no reason given for the resignation and no indication of what Harper would do next.

When asked what he would say to students, Shelby said, "We're behind them, we believe in them, and we're going to make everything run smooth, but we can't do it instantly, but we're gonna be working on it and working on it hard."

Shelby continued, "You have to remember that the students in our district have won tremendous academic awards all over the state. Sports - we've won all over the nation. These are good young people and we're going to be there for them."

The school district has been dealing with a series of criminal charges against a student, a teacher, a volunteer coach, and two administrators after reports of sexual abuse, images or videos of students. Charges against one administrator have been dropped. The former athletic director is also under investigation, but no charges have been filed.