YORK COUNTY — This summer, York County Schools Superintendent Victor Shandor announced his retirement after 11 years of service to the division. As he prepares to take a step back from his duties as superintendent, Shandor sat down with WYDaily to reflect on his tenure.
Shandor, who is currently the longest tenured superintendent in Hampton Roads, came to the district in 2014.
“I knew I was walking into a really good school division. I had an experienced school board and Executive Cabinet. I started in November of 2014 and had some time to listen to staff members, the community, and students to fully understand the school division. I attended every event I could and talked to everyone and got a strong understanding of each of the schools as well as each of the departments in the school division,” Shandor said.
After those initial days, Shandor noticed a key problem: the district was suffering from initiative fatigue. He refocused the division and began analyzing attendance data, behavior data, academic data and school connectedness data.
“Every child that comes to school is not going to be in a music program or an athlete or a cheerleader or those types of things. Trying to find opportunities for those types of kids to be connected and engaged in schools has been a focus of mine for a number of years. We look at their attendance, their grades, and that connected piece is so important. If they aren’t connected in school, they are either not going to want to attend school or when they attend school, they may potentially act out so they can get sent home from school,” Shandor said.
Shandor recalls one of his biggest moments of pride was how the community bounced back after the 2020 Grafton Complex fire.
“In 2020, standing in an empty gym at Grafton High School with Katherine Goff and Jason Short — shooting a video for the community … I was at a loss for words. We had 2,200 kids, and over 130 staff members impacted by the fire. My first six years went pretty well, and then this situation really challenged my leadership. I remember saying, ‘what the hell am I going to say …’ Katherine said, ‘speak from your heart and be you and that will be enough.’ She was exactly right,” Shandor said.
“We spent three days and nights with our school board office admin team, the GHS and GMS team, and the principals from Tabb and York high schools at the time. We used our problem-solving tools and had fierce debates with each other until one in the morning, but we had those kids back in school in seven days because of how our team and the community came together,” Shandor added.
As he reflected, there was a big emphasis on the importance of building and maintaining relationships.
“One of the most important things in leadership is relationships. How you build those relationships with all of your staff members, your local government, your students, your community leaders, your university partnerships, especially in the superintendent role, that’s hugely important. Relationships are everything. We’ve been very successful because I have a group of team members that truly understand the power of relationships,” Shandor said.
Within those relationships, Shandor has had his fair share of tragedy in the division. He said having those strong relationships helps most in times of sadness.
“There’s things you can control and things you can’t control. We’ve really done a great job of remembering that kids are kids and that we’re working with people. You have to have compassion, care, and love for all the people we serve. We’ve had some really, really difficult situations we’ve worked through like the fire and the pandemic, but while these things are challenges, nothing compares to when you get those phone calls that some of your kids were in a car accident or something happened to one of your staff members, when you get those phone calls, we immediately step into action and the first thing we think of is how can we wrap our arms around that family? And the second thing is, how can we wrap our arms around the kids at the school? The human element of these things have gotten away from us as a society. It’s really important for our community to remember that all means all, every student, every staff member, all the time,” Shandor said.
Under his leadership, the division has thrived and has since been recognized by Niche.com as a #1 school district in Virginia. Niche also ranked the division as being the second best division with the best teachers in the commonwealth and the 26th best district to teach in the state.
“Having the York County School Division ranked as the number school division in the state is a testament to our entire staff and the work they do every day. This truly validates what I’ve known for years… Our students, staff, and families working collaboratively makes YCSD the best place to work and learn in Virginia,” Shandor said.
While Shandor will take a step back from his Superintendent duties on Sept. 30, he is helping James Carroll, the district’s interim superintendent, adjust to his new role.
Shandor hopes that his overall legacy in York County Schools will be about the passion that he had for his students and staff.
“Hopefully, the community and staff will say, ‘He did what was best for kids.’ Every decision was determined on what was best for kids … hiring executive staff and principals, upgrading facilities, budget requests, defending my people or holding myself and my team accountable. I didn’t care how anyone else felt because at the end of the day, it was about what is best for kids,” Shandor said.