Schools superintendent to leave

The Sonoma Valley Unified School District announced this morning that Barbara Young has resigned, effective the end of this school year. Reached by telephone, she said how much she’s loved Sonoma Valley, the people she’s worked with, and the work she’s been doing. She said that her decision was not a result of the recent vote on Measure E, the $91 per year parcel tax that failed to get 67 percent approval from the voters.
Her retirement package through the state employees system reaches its maximum at the end of this year, and Young said simply that, “It’s time for me to retire.” She has maintained her home in Alameda County during the time she was superintendent of schools both in Mill Valley and in Sonoma.
In an announcement to be released later today, the school board is expected to announce that an executive search firm will be hired next month and that a full selection process be be undertaken. Young had been brought in on an interim basis, following the mid-year departure in 2005 of the prior superintendent, before being hired permanently,