New interim superintendent Rob Clark said changes are coming to the Sequim School District, starting with personnel moves.

Clark said that he couldn’t announce the full scope of those changes now as they are not finalized, but said the district is “in negotiations on a separation agreement” with Randy Hill, the district’s Human Resources Director and a former Sequim High School assistant principal, which is expected to be finalized soon.

Hill has served in various administrative roles in the Sequim School District since being hired in 2002, and in total has 36 years of certificated education experience dating back to being a teacher and eventually a principal in the Coulee-Hartline School District in eastern Washington for most of the 1980s.

Clark said he wouldn’t go into detail over the cause of Hill’s absence and upcoming departure given active legal negotiations, but the superintendent said the move did not have to do with a lawsuit brought against the district that was settled in March.

Clark also noted that administrator Vince Riccobene will have a new role with the district as a principal on special assignment.

Riccobene’s duties are still being finalized and will be announced in coming weeks, but Clark said that Riccobene will be going to different schools in the district to help with administrative functions as well as to help evaluate different programs and policies at the schools.

Former superintendent Gary Neal announced earlier this year that Riccobene would be joining Greywolf Elementary’s Donna Hudson as in a co-principal role, but Clark said he disagrees with that decision.

“That’s not the direction we’re going to go,” he told the Gazette last week.

Formerly the principal at Sequim Middle School, Riccobene was named in the 2018 federal discrimination lawsuit filed by former teacher/athletic director Autumn St. George, which was settled in March for $850,000. He was frequently subject of public comments at district board meetings in recent months.

Clark also echoed a statement he previously made at a recent board meeting that the district needs to “move forward, and not get stuck in what happened the past.

“We need to deal with what happened and use it to be better from now on,” Clark said.