Members of the Southside ISD board of managers voted unanimously Thursday night to hire Rolando Ramirez, the current superintendent of Valley View ISD, as their next district leader. Ramirez will replace Mark Eads as superintendent, starting his new role on June 1.
Eads announced last November that he would retire from his position. He served as superintendent since May 2016, through a period marked by turbulence and State intervention that led to the replacement of the elected board of trustees with an appointed board of managers.
Texas Education Agency officials notified the district that the board would begin transitioning back to elected governance no later than May 2020 with a fully elected board slated to oversee the district by May 2022.
Ramirez will work with that transitioning board. He comes to Southside ISD from Valley View ISD, a Rio Grande Valley district that enrolled close to 4,500 students in 2018-19.
“I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve the students, parents, and community of Southside ISD,” Ramirez said, videoconferencing into the board meeting Thursday evening. “We will work as a team to reach our goals. That will be the expectation.”
After his remarks Thursday evening, Ramirez introduced his family to the board, panning his video camera to his wife and sons wearing Southside ISD T-shirts before donning one of his own over his button-down shirt and tie.
Ramirez is working on obtaining his doctorate in educational leadership from Lamar University and has a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Texas-Pan American, now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
