CVCHS removes interim tag from Executive Director Bill Morones
CONCORD, CA (July 24, 2024) — Bill Morones has had a diverse career in education but if he were charting a course for his future when he was Ygnacio Valley High School principal from 2010 to 2012, serving as executive director of Clayton Valley Charter would have been at the very bottom of his expectations.
In those years Morones was a vocal opponent of the effort by Clayton Valley High teachers to have the Concord school leave the Mt. Diablo Unified School District and become a charter school. Morones was among many opposing the conversion who said it would cost his school and others funding which would be taken from the district coffers if the charter was approved.
The charter conversion drive was successful, and Clayton Valley Charter began as a charter high school at the start of the 2012-13 school year. At the same time, Morones moved into the MDUSD administrative office as director of secondary education (middle, alternative and high schools). Among his duties, superintendent Nellie Meyer assigned him to be the district liaison with the new charter since MDUSD owned the school property and facilities.
That assignment meant Morones and CVCHS founding executive director Dave Linzey met informally, usually at a Starbucks, on a regular basis. Over that time Morones saw the charter school go through a tumultuous period with many of the conversion leaders, both teachers and new administrators, leaving the school after clashing with Linzey’s management.
Morones came to appreciate how CVCHS was operating as a school with an expanding student body that required the school to hold a lottery every year to manage the applications which outstrip the school’s classroom capacity.
This year’s incoming student body will number about 2350, which has been a stable figure for several years with waitlists for all four classes.
Morones took an administrative position at Clayton Valley Charter for the 2017-18 school year and is starting his eighth school term there next month. That means Morones served under all his executive director predecessors: Linzey (2012-18), Bob Hampton (interim summer 2018), Jim Scheible (2018-2021) and Dave Fehte (2021-2023).
Fehte took over for Scheible on an interim basis in March 2021 as the school was coming out of the COVID-19 period of remote and hybrid learning. His interim tag was removed a year later. When principal Jeff Anderson left early in the 2021-22 school year Fehte’s ED position was combined with the principal’s job, as it still is today.
Fehte departed CVCHS last fall and relocated to Southern California and the governing board appointed Morones to the position on an interim basis. At its recent June meeting the board approved a two-year contract for Morones to serve as executive director. His salary is $240,000.
Now it is his ‘dream job’
Morones calls this his “dream job.” He says, “I love my job, the students, staff and school community.”
His teaching career included schools in Hayward, Fremont and Danville, where he still lives today and draws stares at the gym and around town wearing his CVCHS gear.
While teaching in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District he got his administrative credential and was an administrator there and in Gustine, Antioch, Elk Grove and Newark, where he won a principal of the year award in 2008.
He also found time to coach football at Saint Mary’s College before the program was abandoned after the 2003 season. His love of sports is matched by the Concord school’s large athletic and PE departments. Last summer CVCHS finally added a weight training building adjacent to the football, soccer and lacrosse field after using a group of classrooms for many years.
Because of the disruption in education during the pandemic all charter school accreditations were extended three years. CVCHS was approved by a single vote of the County Board of Education in January 2020 for its second five-year renewal after its initial approval to leave the Mt. Diablo Unified School District to operate as a public charter school in the summer of 2012 and initial five-year renewal in 2014.
The CVCHS charter renewal was originally due to be reviewed during this 2024-25 school year, but the COVID extension means it will run through June 2028. Morones says, “I’m laser focused on preparing for the renewal process which will be no later than the fall of 2027.” By then the school will also go through a WASC review.
Jay Bedecarré
Jay Bedecarré is a long-time resident and writer in Concord and Clayton. He began his newspaper writing career while still a senior at Mt. Diablo High School and he has been part of The Pioneer since its inception in 2003. Jay also operates Bay Area Festivals, presenting events around the San Francisco Bay Area including Bay Area KidFest annually in Downtown Concord.