The former head of the Oregon Department of Education has been tapped as the interim superintendent of the Eugene school district, the seventh largest in the state.
Colt Gill left the state education agency last June after five years as state schools chief, a position to which he was appointed by former Gov. Kate Brown.
His temporary appointment in Eugene, finalized by school board members there on Wednesday, comes just two weeks after the district parted ways with former Superintendent Andy Dey, who resigned after internal investigations into misconduct allegations, as first reported by Eugene Weekly.
Gill, 57, previously served as superintendent of the Bethel School District, a Eugene suburb. He grew up in the region and attended school in the neighboring Springfield school district.
Gill was at the epicenter of policymaking for Oregon’s 197 school districts during the pandemic.He also oversaw the rollout of a corporate tax for education that has delivered about $1 billion a year for new and upgraded programs and services.
During his tenure, Gill’s leadership came under criticism from state auditors for what they described as the education department’s hands off approach to overseeing the billions of dollars that the state funnels to school districts every biennium.
The audit charged that the state agency didn’t do enough to set high standards for districts and had largely failed to intervene despite some districts producing consistently poor results for their students, especially those of color and those living in poverty.
Eugene is one of several large districts in Oregon currently seeking a new superintendent. Others include Portland and Tigard-Tualatin.
— Julia Silverman covers education policy and schools for The Oregonian/OregonLive. She can be reached via email at jsilverman@oregonlive.com. Follow her on X.com at @jrlsilverman.