On top of all the controversy and personal battles going on at the Osceola County School District and at our School Board, as a community we now will have to find a new top administrator for our school system. Not totally a surprise given recent events, Superintendent Michael A. Grego Wednesday announced in a letter to the board that he would resign at the end of May, after being on the job not quite three years.

The School District with Grego at the helm has come a long way but questions over certain issues have persisted, such as mistakes in the facilities department, hiring practices for top staff, the perceived low morale, questions over contracts and shortfalls in adequate yearly progress in terms of school performance, just to name a few examples. Also, it's obvious that there have been conflicts between certain School Board members and the superintendent – conflicts that perhaps the superintendent felt could never be resolved, hence the resignation.

Good, bad or in-between, the current School Board is vastly different from what it was when the superintendent was hired in terms of personalities and the problems that must be faced. Two of those members who voted to hire Grego (David Stone and John McKay) were defeated in the 2010 election and a third (Jay Wheeler) eventually will have to resign since he is running for county commissioner.

It is a certainty that new faces and new people always bring new expectations for all involved – and that is not necessarily bad. Those expectations not only came from the new School Board members themselves but from the voters who put them into office. This certainly was one of those situations, not to mention the stresses and worries generated by shrinking budgets and falling revenue (both locally and from the state).

As we move forward, we wish the superintendent and his family the best of luck and, at the same time, we also urge School Board members to renew their efforts to work together as a team, to deal with the issues at hand quickly keeping personalities out of the equation and most importantly, consolidating any academic and performance gains the district has made over the last three years.

We also urge the board to form a superintendent search/selection committee that truly reflects the diversity of Osceola County.