HAMPSHIRE – District 300 has selected a familiar face to rejoin the administration and manage major projects that include boundary changes to address overcrowding and space for more teachers.
Hampshire High School Principal Chuck Bumbales will return to the district office in July as assistant superintendent of operations. He held that position from 2004 to 2008.
Bumbales said he will meet with Superintendent Michael Bregy to start planning the district’s boundary changes and updating its 8-year-old infrastructure plan.
“I do see the challenges that lie in the position, and I think I have something to offer that will benefit the district,” Bumbales said.
As the district’s operations chief in the mid-2000s, he oversaw the construction process of Hampshire High School. Boundaries were last redrawn with the construction of the high school and development of Gilberts and Wright elementary schools to accommodate a growing student
population on the district’s west side.
Boundary changes now largely are being driven by a new teacher contract and the classroom caps contained within it. The deal calls for hiring 63 teachers to shrink class sizes that currently average between 33 and 37 students at the elementary level.
Boundaries could be redrawn and students moved as early as the 2014-15 school year, officials said.
Bumbales also will update the district’s infrastructure plan, which was last revised in 2005. He’ll prioritize projects and figure out how to best use $35 million in construction money the state still owes the district for the Hampshire, Gilberts and Wright projects.
“We have some very heavy lifting ahead of us in the near future when it comes to short- and long-term facility planning, and we could think of no better fit than Chuck,” Bregy said in a statement. “He knows our community. He knows our schools. He knows our systems.”
Bumbales will leave a school that has had no other principal since opening in 2008. He began his career at the district in 1985 as an English teacher at Jacobs High School.
The operations position was created when Tom Hay, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning instructional services, decided to retire this summer. Hay’s position will not be filled.
District officials said they hope to replace Bumbales as high school principal by the end of the school year.They began accepting applications for the vacancy this week.
