Ted D. Kimbrough was an American educator who served as superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, Sacramento Unified School District, and Compton Unified School District.
Early life and education
Kimbrough was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in nearby Evanston, Illinois. Kimbrough was black.
Kimbrough received his undergraduate degree from Northern Illinois University, and his master's degree from California State University, Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Unified School District career
Kimbrough started his career in education working as an industrial arts teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He would work in the district for 26 years. After being a teacher, he became a principal. He eventually came to hold administrative roles in the district, serving as the school system's legislative lobbyist, director of revenue, and assistant superintendent.
Superintendent of Compton Unified School District
In September 1982, Kimbrough was appointed to be superintendent of the Compton Unified School District. He took office the following month.
Kimbrough inherited a troubled school system. The system had had instability in leadership, going through eleven separate superintendents in the previous fifteen years. The system was struggling with gang-related activity. When Kimbrough took office, the system was in the midst of a scandal related to altered student test scores, as Kimbrough held an investigation into the test scores matter and other allegations, and, in well as allegations of nepotism, employees with false credentials, and illegal maintenance contracts. In his first two years, removed at least forty high-ranking administrators.
Kimbrough was controversial since the early days of his tenure. During his tenure, Kimbrough faced numerous unsuccessful campaigns demanding his removal from office. At one point, he himself threatened his resignation. The school board was sharply divided during his time as superintendent, with numerous trustees being in opposition to Kimbrough.
There was a teachers' strike during his tenure. Additionally, in 1989, the district lost 158 teachers who departed the school district in order to take higher paying jobs with the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Kimbrough worked to establish a number of programs to connect California's system of state universities with the ublic schools.
In 1989, a principal in the district alleged that Kimbrough had sexually harassed her and denied her a promotion after she refused to partake in a sex game in which administrators took turns hiding $20 bills on their bodies. The school board trustees backed Kimbrough, declaring the charges groundless. Kimbrough admitted to having participated in some sort of game, but outright denied the game being of a sexual nature.
Kimbrough was credited with having installed greater order and professionalism in the school district. Kimbrough was credited with decreasing gang violence in the school district. Some educators praised progress made under Kimbrough's superintendency.In 1987, the Association of California School Administrators named him "superintendent of the year". In 1988, he was named "superintendent of the year" by the American Association of School Administrators, who cited both his institution of programs to enhance communications between the school district and its employees, as well as his work on aiding "problem students" to return to mainstream classes. Ahead of his departure, the Associated Press wrote that he had, "demonstrated his resilience" as superintendent in Compton.
Kimbrough left office in 1990, taking office in Chicago. Despite the progress Kimbrough had been credited with making for the district, in 1993 (three years after he left office), the state of California took control of the school district due to its chronically poor educational performance.
Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools
Concluding a roughly year-long search for a new superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, in October 1989, the Chicago Board of Education announced that, effective January 1990, Kimbrough would take the helm of Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest school system in the United States. During their nationwide search for a new superintendent, school officials had expressed interest in choosing a Black superintendent, since over sixty percent of enrolled students were Black at the time. Kimbrough was given a $175,000 salary for his four-year contract, which was $75,000 more than the previous permanent superintendent, Manford Byrd Jr., and made Kimbrough one of the highest-paid school superintendents in the United States.