South Fayette superintendent looks to spend more time with family in retirement
After spending more than eight years at the helm of the South Fayette School District, Superintendent Bille Rondinelli plans to retire in January to spend more time with family.
“Serving as the superintendent of schools for the children, parents, family, and community of the South Fayette Township School District has been the greatest journey of my career,” Rondinelli said in an email.
Rondinelli was hired in South Fayette on Aug. 25, 2009.
Before joining South Fayette, she worked as an assistant superintendent at Moon Area, assistant principal at Jefferson Middle School in Mt. Lebanon and chair of the high school English department at Shenango Area School District in Lawrence County. She has a doctorate in administrative and policy studies, according to her LinkedIn profile.
With the birth of her first grandchild, Joie Alexa, in December 2015, a son who lives in New York, and the recent announcement by her youngest son and his wife that they are expecting “a new bundle of joy” in December, Rondinelli plans to spend retirement with family.
Rondinelli said she also plans to “continue to be an advocate for children and public education.”
Board members at a special meeting in July hired Tom Templeton, founder of Templeton Advantage, of Newport, Pa., to assist in the search for the district's next superintendent. He will make a base salary of $15,000, with an additional $2,500 for expenses.
Templeton previously worked for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association in numerous roles and has conducted at least 45 superintendent searches, including in the South Fayette, Allegheny Valley, Avonworth, Fox Chapel Area, Elizabeth Forward, South Allegheny and West Jefferson Hills school districts.
Meetings have been held with community members and students to gather input on the search. A survey also was sent out to parents seeking comment.
South Fayette, with an enrollment of 3,267 students at the start of the 2017-18 school year, is looking for a “dynamic individual” with “proven executive organizational leadership skills and accomplishments” and “social strengths” to run the district that boasts it is anything but the status quo in the superintendent's job description.
As she prepares to leave, Rondinelli offered thanks to the board members, staff, parents, community and “most importantly our extraordinary students that have contributed to our collective success.”
“The ‘Lion Paw Print' is firmly planted in my heart and soul,” she said.
Stephanie Hacke is a Tribune-Review contributing writer.
This story originally appeared in the Sept. 7, 2017, edition of The Signal Item.
