Interim superintendent hits ground running

Trussville City Schools has its acting superintendent, and he wasted no time getting started.

The Trussville City Schools Board of Education on Oct. 13 hired Frank Costanzo to lead the school system on an interim basis. Costanzo retired as the superintendent of Tuscaloosa County Schools in 2012. He has more than 40 years of experience in education as a teacher, bus driver, assistant principal, principal, central office director, assistant superintendent and superintendent. He has spent 10 years in educational consulting.

“This school district has earned a reputation for academic excellence, and the boundless opportunities offered beyond the classroom setting provide enriching learning experience for students at all levels,” Costanzo said.

Since retiring, Costanzo has served as interim superintendent in Demopolis, Talladega, Sylacauga and Pell City. He currently is employed with Criterion K12 Consultants in Birmingham as an educational consultant as well as working part time with the Alabama State Department of Education.

Board Vice President Kim DeShazo said Costanzo meets all the characteristics a person can to meet the needs of this position. He brings a level of experience, she said, that helps with crisis management.

“He just has a good demeanor about him,” she said.

Board member Steve Ward said he was impressed with Costanzo’s experience and called him an “ideal candidate.” The most impressive thing about him, Ward said, was his focus on students and teachers and not about himself.

“That, to me, probably hit home as much as anything else,” Ward said.

Less than a week into his acting superintendent role, Costanzo had to address a serious situation. On Oct. 19, he emailed parents and guardians of Trussville students about a threat made by a student on a Hewitt-Trussville Middle School bus. Administrators and the school resource officer initiated the threat assessment protocol “to ensure student safety and assess the credibility of the threat.” All students and faculty were safe.

In part, he wrote, “I would like to ask each parent to have a conversation with your child. Please relay to your children the gravity and consequences of making statements of threats. Even playful, ‘just kidding’ statements must be investigated and evaluated through the threat assessment protocol.  Please stress the serious nature of threats to your children.”

Costanzo came to Trussville in October after Trussville City Schools Superintendent Pattie Neill was placed on a 60-day administrative leave Sept. 30 in the wake of a Hewitt-Trussville High School student being suspended in September after making terroristic threats Sept. 16, almost a year after he created a “death notebook” that contained the names of 37 classmates, a notebook that did not come to light to authorities until almost a year later. Principal Tim Salem was placed on administrative leave Sept. 27.

“My role is to provide the leadership to continue to move the system forward,” Costanzo said. “It’s also my responsibility to provide the information and data to help the Board make the decisions that are in the best interest of students that we serve. I do not work in isolation. I will be open and transparent in all the work that I do.”

Costanzo noted that a lot of superintendents and educators have retired and simply “gone away.” He’s an exception.

“I haven’t done that,” he said.