Lee County School Board chooses superintendent, will begin contract negotiations

The Lee County School has selected a new superintendent.

In a 6-1 vote, the board has decided to enter contract negotiations with Christopher Bernier.

Bernier will have to negotiate and sign his contract before being officially appointed superintendent of the School District of Lee County.

About 90,000 students attend the school district, which has a budget of $1.5 billion and 12,000 employees.

Bernier was a frontrunner along with Michael Ramirez, who spent 16 years working in the Broward County school system.

Bernier spent 32 years working in Orange County.

They were part of the top five finalists for the job.

Bernier would replace interim Superintendent Kenneth Savage, who was appointed to the job after Greg Adkins left the job in June of last year.

In a statement, Bernier, said he is “committed to putting out students first and working with the school board to achieve its vision of being world-class school system.

For school board member Chris Patricca, it is Bernier’s ability to step into the role without much learning on the job that made him the right candidate.

“He’s more seasoned, had more confidence he’d be ready to come in,” said school board member Cathleen O’Daniel Morgan.

The board felt like Ramirez would need too much mentoring.

“It was close, knew Bernier had the edge in my view,” said Board member Betsy Vaughn.

Vaughn said she wished Bernier spoke Spanish.

Ramirez, who is Puerto Rican, sold himself as the man who could relate to and understand minority students.

More than 40 percent of the district is Latino.

But Gwyn Gittens, Lee County’s only Black school board member, said she believes Bernier is equipped to lead all students.

“He’s worked in minority-majority districts and very well trained on explicit and implicit bias and all those things,” Gittens said.