The outgoing superintendent of the Park City School District is starting a new job in Colorado

Park City School District Superintendent Jill Gildea said goodbye to the district this week as she prepares to start her new job.

She will remain on the Park City payroll through Jan. 31, 2025, but on Friday, as the new CEO, she began leading Colorado Early Colleges, a network of K-12 tuition-free charter schools with campuses along Colorado’s Front Range. The network also works with students learning at home.

“Early College” refers to a curriculum designed to give students the opportunity to earn associate degrees, technical education certificates, or more than 60 credits by the time they graduate from high school.

“Most importantly, Dr. Gildea understands CEC’s No Exceptions policy. No excuses. mission to our students, parents and communities,” Laura Calhoun, president of the organization’s board of directors, said this week in a welcome letter. “Coupled with her track record of innovation and leading other school systems in achieving significant results, the board is confident that Dr. Gildea is the best leader to advance CEC’s mission in our communities.”

While Gildea had worked in Park City Schools since 2018, the district continued to have a strong reputation academically and in terms of extracurricular offerings. She led the district through the tumultuous years of the Covid-19 pandemic and faced criticism along with the board over some of its missteps, which culminated in a report this spring by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which followed a two-year investigation that found lapses in a lax approach district regarding nearly 200 reports of students being bullied by other students.

Early reaction to the report was met with more criticism, although this fall the district became much more assertive about the report’s findings and, more importantly, in its efforts to end student bullying.

Three incumbent school board members abandoned their re-election campaigns last spring and early summer shortly after the report was released, and community criticism intensified when lame-duck board members used their supermajority to extend Gildea’s next two-year contract on a 3-2 vote in August while still were in office.

As they later learned, Gildea was looking for a job and became the only finalist for a job in Colorado before Park City voted on whether to renew her contract. She never received an answer to the question whether, as a school superintendent, she violated the contractual provision to notify the school board about the need to apply for another job.

All of the candidates running for seats starting next year have at times criticized the school board majority and the administration, while being mostly complimentary of faculty and staff. The main flaws are leadership and especially errors in communication.

Gildea is Utah’s highest-paid school district principal through at least Jan. 31, and the district has provided her with a home while she serves. And Park City is the most expensive community of its size in the state.

Her new role in Colorado seemed to make her forget about the city and the school district.

“I am grateful to the board for the confidence they have in me to build on the extraordinary legacy established by CEC’s founder, the late Senator Keith King, and lead this exceptional network into the future,” Gildea said in her welcome letter.

Park City district officials deemed her departure a “retirement” in September and named middle school principal Caleb Fine as interim superintendent. No timeline has been released for the search for the next permanent superintendent.