FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Board of Education named Robin Kinney as interim state commissioner of education during a special meeting on Sept. 14.
The search for the next commissioner is still ongoing after current commissioner Jason Glass announced he would step away from the position early.
Kinney, an associate commissioner who oversees the Office of Finance and Operations for the Kentucky Department of Education, will assume her new role Sept. 30 — one day after Glass departs the agency.
Toni Konz Tatman, chief communications officer for KDE, explained how Kinney was selected.
“Because the Board of Education wants to do a national search for its next commissioner, there was a need for them to appoint an interim commissioner. There was just not going to be time to be able to do a search in two months’ worth of time,” she said.
Kinney’s annual salary was set at the equivalent of $260,000. She will not be eligible for the position of permanent commissioner of education.
Kinney first joined KDE from 2003 to 2008 and then rejoined in 2015. She previously served as interim commissioner for a short period in Dec. 2019 following the departure of former commissioner Wayne Lewis.
She received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Kentucky and a juris doctorate from UK’s College of Law. She is a licensed attorney in Kentucky and Florida.
“Really, the public and our district should not notice much of a difference from Sept. 29 to Sept. 30, and, you know, in months to come, the services and the commitment that we have to our 171 school districts is going to stay the same,” Konz Tatman said. “For Robin, it’s just, let’s keep things running until we can get a permanent commissioner in the role. Continue the initiatives of the board, make sure that our districts continue to feel supported, and that our families and students that contact us continue basically so that there’s not a discontinuation of services.”
Glass announced on July 31 that he would step down as commissioner on Sept. 29, a year before his contract was set to expire.
On Aug. 21, the KBE authorized KDE to issue a solicitation for a national search firm that could begin a search for a new commissioner. The request for proposals may be found on Kentucky’s Vendor Self Service website. The request for proposals will close on Sept. 25.
Once a vendor is selected and the contract executed, the processing of a contract can take up to 30 days. The goal is for the search firm to begin work no later than Dec. 1.
Over the next three months, KBE members will be engaging with various stakeholder groups, including all of KDE’s advisory councils, to ask about the traits they hope to see in the state’s next education commissioner, as well as what they believe are top priorities.
So far, the Commissioner’s Student Advisory Council and the agency’s Family Partnership Council have participated in the discussion. In addition, Robinson gathered feedback from school superintendents during a Sept. 12 webcast hosted by KDE.
“The board definitely wants someone who is aligned with their goals and things that they’ve been working on,” Konz Tatman said. “Really, a lot of the things that Commissioner Glass has done really have been initiatives that the board asked him to do. So I don’t really think of any many of the initiatives that we’ve really been engaged with over the last three years to be Commissioner Glass initiatives. They’ve been initiatives for the Commonwealth that the Board of Education has asked him to do or to work on.”