Two months after she was fired from the Orange Unified School District, Gunn Marie Hansen found a new home in Westminster.
The Westminster School Board voted unanimously Thursday night, March 23, to hire Hansen as its top administrator. She begins work on April 1.
“I am incredibly honored to be the superintendent of the Westminster School District, and I look forward to collaborating with the Board of Education and the entire community of learners to continue to accelerate achievement and develop state-of-the-art programs for students,” Hansen said in a statement ahead of the board’s vote.
Hansen last worked at Orange Unified, where she served as superintendent for six of her 13 years there until she was unexpectedly fired on Jan. 5.
At the time of their divided 4-3 vote, the Orange Unified majority gave no public explanation for its action. But in a later interview, President Rick Ledesma said the board wanted to go in a new direction, saying the district was “focusing too much on the social politics of education.”
Since then, Orange Unified hired an interim superintendent, who quit a couple of weeks before his contract expired. And now that board has hired a consultant to find a new, full-time superintendent.
In Westminster, Hansen will take over a position left vacant in October when Superintendent Cyndi Paik resigned due to personal matters. The 17-school district serves some 8,200 students in Westminster, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach and unincorporated Midway City.
School board members interviewed more than 30 candidates and selected Hansen on March 11, according to district spokesman Tony Phan. But no public announcement of that decision was made until Thursday afternoon before the board was scheduled to finalize her appointment.
Hansen has won numerous accolades in her 32-year career in public education, including the 2022 Administrator of the Year award from the Orange County 4th District Parent Teacher Association. In addition to working…
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