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Kentucky School Advocate

September 2016

SEMP shares
Ron Willhite, director of KSBA’s School Energy Managers Project, led a recent webinar for state energy offices on best practices for Kentucky in K-12 school energy efficiency programs using ENERGY STAR tools and resources. The webinar was hosted by the National Association of State Energy Officials’ ENERGY STAR Task Force.

Willhite reviewed SEMP’s progress in helping boost the number of ENERGY STAR-certified schools in the state and in helping schools to save more than $68 million in cumulative avoided utility costs. He also explained the program’s sustainability and lessons learned in its six years of successful operation. Lee Colten of the state’s Department for Energy Development and Independence also participated in the webinar with Willhite.

It was the fourth installment of a five-part webinar series to educate state energy offices on the federal ENERGY STAR program.

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KASS leadership
Webster County Schools Superintendent Dr. Rachel Yarbrough was installed as president of the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents July 21 during the annual Leadership Institute of the Kentucky Association of School Administrators in Louisville. Advancing from the vice presidency, she takes the reins from Floyd County Schools Superintendent Dr. Henry Webb, who moves into the past president position.

Bo Matthews, Barren County Schools superintendent, moved up to president-elect, while Boone County Schools Superintendent Dr. Randy Poe is the group’s new vice president.

Yarbrough is in her third year as superintendent in Webster County. She has spent much of her 27-year career in that district, including as an English and social studies teacher, guidance counselor, principal and assistant superintendent for nine years. She spent six years as superintendent of Crittenden County Schools before returning to lead the Webster County system.

Yarbrough was chairperson of the Western Kentucky Educational Cooperative from 2014-16 and currently serves on the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative’s board of directors. She is a member of the Governor’s Early Childhood Council, the Kentucky Department of Education’s Accountability Steering Committee and the Kentucky New Superintendent Mentor Cadre. Yarbrough also has been selected to serve on the Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia Governing Board beginning in 2017.

Yarbrough, a graduate of Webster County High School, holds an undergraduate degree in education and a doctorate with emphasis on organizational leadership from Oakland City University, and a master’s degree in school counseling from Western Kentucky University.

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Groundbreaking choice
Former Glasgow Independent Schools administrator and teacher Bill Twyman is the new chairman of the Kentucky Board of Education, unanimously elected at its Aug. 4 meeting. He succeeds Roger Marcum, who reached his three-year limit for chairing the panel. Mary Gwen Wheeler was elected vice-chair. Officers serve one-year terms.

Twyman is the first African American to chair the board since it was reconstituted under the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990. He was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear to a four-year term ending April 2018.

“I’m very, very thankful,” Twyman said after his selection as chairman. “I hope that we can continue as a unit. We are individuals. We have our own ideas and our own thoughts, but we are a unit – the Kentucky Board of Education.
“I’ve served on many different boards in different capacities. There are highs and lows, ups and downs, but we will get through this together.”

Twyman, of Cave City, works part-time with Educational Directors, a Louisville-based firm specializing in educator training in schools and central offices. A graduate of Campbellsville University, George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and Western Kentucky University, he was one of Kentucky’s first recipients of the prestigious Milken Educator Awards in 1993.

Wheeler is executive director of the non-profit 55,000 Degrees, which promotes increasing the number of Louisville adults with bachelor’s and associate degrees. She is married to Jefferson County Board of Education Chairman David Jones.