HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — The Cabell County Board of Education has selected a familiar face as the new school superintendent after accepting the resignation of Dr. Ryan Saxe.
Mason County Schools Superintendent Tim Hardesty was named to the job during a special board meeting in Huntington Wednesday afternoon.
Hardesty, who previously served as the assistant superintendent in Cabell County, will serve under a four-year contract that begins July 1. He left the district in 2017 to become the superintendent in Mason County.
Hardesty told the Cabell County BOE he’s glad to return to a school district he knows and loves.
“I am so excited to be home. This feels like home. We have some phenomenal employees here. We have phenomenal administrators. Our students are absolutely top-notch,” Hardesty said.
Hardesty will make an annual salary of $180,000 for the first two years of his term and will receive $185,000 during the remaining two years.
Saxe accepted a three-year contract as the new superintendent of Berkeley County Schools earlier this week. His original contract in Cabell County ran through June 2025. His final day on the job will be June 30.
Many residents at Wednesday’s meeting spoke in favor of a new superintendent following the failure of a five-year school excess levy. The levy, which included reduced funding to the Cabell County Public Library and the Greater Huntington Parks & Recreation District, was defeated during the May Primary Election. Saxe previously cited a decline in student enrollment, a lack of additional COVID-19 funds and inflation for the funding cuts.
Huntington resident Josh Keck told the board it’s time for new leadership.
“We really need a superintendent with strong communication skills. That’s something that I don’t think Dr. Saxe bought to the table,” Keck said. “We need someone who won’t look at this like a business.”
Another resident Monty Fowler recommended the board approve a shorter term for the new superintendent so the community can build its trust back with school leaders.
“Whoever you hire, give them a one-year contract. That will give the community time to take the measure of this person and to heal. If you do anything beyond that, the trust that you may have built up is going to erode even further,” Fowler said before Hardesty was announced as the new superintendent.
Hardesty, in his remarks before the board Wednesday, said he vows to protect funding libraries and parks.
“It’s important that we support each other as an organization that works with kids and that includes the parks and libraries as we know. They’re an interictal part of our community and our kids’ lives,” he said.
The levy has faced a number of court challenges over the last year. In February, the state Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that would’ve continued funding libraries and parks. In Dec. 2023, a Cabell County Circuit Court judge ruled in favor of libraries and parks after the two parties filed a lawsuit against the school board. The BOE then appealed the lower court’s decision to the Supreme Court.
The board is still working on crafting a revised levy before an Aug. 20 deadline. It will be up for another vote in the November General Election.
Meanwhile, Saxe will be stepping into another controversy as Berkeley County Schools deals with a state of emergency declared by the state Board of Education in May over behavioral and academic progress issues at Martinsburg North Middle School. A plan of action was approved by the state BOE last week.
Saxe was named the West Virginia Superintendent of the Year this week. His new contract runs through June 30, 2027. He’ll get paid a salary of $198,000 in his first year, $203,940 the second year and $210,058 for the third year.