Rick Pedersen (left) will now be the shared superintendent of both Sumner-Frericksburg and West 
Central school districts. Stuart Fuhs stepped down from the position, but will still be involved as West
Central’s principal and athletic director.

Sumner-Fred and WC agree to operational sharing

Chris Deback
cdeback@thefayettecountyunion.com

The West Central school board approved an operational sharing agreement with Sumner-Fredericksburg at its monthly meeting on May 14.

The two districts will share a superintendent as well as maintenance and transportation directors. West Central will be responsible for almost 20 percent of new Superintendent Rick Pedersen’s salary, who will spend at least one day a week at West Central but will be available more often if needed.

The agreement took effect on July 1, the day after former superintendent Stuart Fuhs stepped down. However, West Central faithful need not worry, Fuhs isn’t going anywhere. According to Pedersen, Fuhs simply made an unselfish decision to help the district and will remain on as principal and athletic director, according to Pedersen.

“To Stuart’s credit, he was willing to step back as superintendent in order for the school district to advance itself financially,” Pedersen said. “When I am not here, [Stuart] will handle the day-to-day operations of the district just as he did before.”

Fuhs actually approached a number of schools last year, including Sumner-Fredericksburg, about operational sharing. After 10 years of whole-grade sharing, Sumner-Fredericksburg was in their first year as one district and wasn’t ready at that time to take on this new venture.

However, Fuhs was persistent and after many talks with Pedersen, after the few kinks of a new school district were worked out, Sumner-Fredricksburg agreed to the sharing.

Sharing the three positions of superintendent, maintenance director and transportation director will have a positive impact on both districts as the state allows a district to report extra students for participating in operational sharing. 

However, every position doesn’t carry the same weight. Each school will get to count an additional eight students for sharing the superintendent and five students each for sharing transportation and maintenance directors for a total of 18 extra students per district.  This amounts to almost a quarter of a million dollars for each district. A district can receive funding for up to an additional 21 extra students through operational sharing. 

Other positions that can be shared and the number of students a district is allowed to report are as follows: curriculum director (three students), business manager (five students), human relations (five students) and counselor (three students). 

According to Fuhs, underfunding from the State, which led to some cuts this year, was a big factor in him continuing to seek operational sharing with another district. It made sense for Sumner-Fredericksburg because when it became one district, it lost operational and whole-grade sharing funding.

“It is just not this year, it has been the past five and six years,” Fuhs said. “It has been catching up with West Central here now and it is denting our bottom-line budget. We made some teacher cuts because of it and some staff position cuts. The State just keeps pulling back more and more money, it seems.”