Patek named Vysehrad School’s lone superintendent finalist

It was both a familiar name and a familiar face to those in Lavaca County that board directors at Vysehrad School picked Monday to serve as leader of their little country school district.

But it had nothing to do with there being a lack of possible names or faces to choose from, that much was certain. They had a total of 27 possibilities, in fact, one of the largest turnouts of superintendent candidates yet in what had to be one of the smallest of districts.

Despite the plethora of candidates, Vysehrad board president Alice Janak said, they had their list narrowed to the Top 5 within the first week. “We saw some great interest here from some truly great candidates, but we also had a really good idea of what would work best for us here,” she said.

After roughly an hour behind closed doors in executive session, presumably for one last review of the applicants, board members resumed their regular monthly business meeting on Monday to name Joey Patek the school’s sole finalist in its roughly month-long search for a new superintendent.

If that name sounds familiar, it probably should. For those who call Shiner home, Patek and his wife are recent arrivals in town. He says they are located here to be closer to their three daughters and first grandbaby, as well as enjoy their retirement years in the place where they grew up. 

Joey Patek attended Shiner Catholic Schools through elementary school and junior high. He did high school, however, over at Shiner Public School. His wife is a native Moulton. He came in as vice president of SouthStar Bank’s Shiner branch, having retired after 35 years in education just last summer.

They moved to Shiner from Rockport on June 30, 2021, where he’d served the last 13 years as superintendent of schools for Aransas County ISD, which readers may recall was one of the hardest hit school districts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in September 2017.

If his name still rings a bell—but not from Shiner—then perhaps his previous post might clear things up. Before taking that post in Rockport, Patek spent more than a decade working as a school administrator at Hallettsville ISD, first as a campus principal at the junior high and later as district superintendent before he headed for the coast.

Before starting in administration at Hallettsville schools, Patek said he spent more than a decade working as a teacher and coach in Schulenburg, Luling and Rockport.

Finding a headline about the latest superintendent hire made someplace definitely hasn’t been difficult lately. Over the last six weeks, tons of school districts across the area made hires for their school’s top leadership—two even took place right here in Lavaca County—with Renee Fairchild leaving the superintendent’s post at Sweet Home School for Moulton ISD, and Michelle Turek hired shortly thereafter to replace her at Sweet Home ISD.

New superintendents also will be starting soon in Flatonia, Schulenburg, Louise, Gonzales, Seguin and Weimar, to name but a few of those nearby.

So, what made Patek their top pick?

That’s easy, said board secretary Barbara Janak. “Experience and his love of the kids.”

Patek is now under the mandatory 21-day waiting period that Texas state law requires of school districts between the time they name a lone finalist and the day they begin their employment. Patek’s 21st day officially falls on the Fourth of July.

So, just how much are superintendents moving about lately? Hard to tell, according to a February edition of Education Weekly forwarded along by Region III superintendent search consultant Morris Lyon, the firm that Vysehrad ISD used to find Patek.

Mainly because there’s a notorious lack of good superintendent data, Educational Weekly reported. But recently, analysts have creatively tried to square that circle—some of them literally going district website by district website and cross-checking news reports to arrive at their estimates.

Still, analysts found that between March 2020 and early this calendar year, 186 of the largest 500 districts by student enrollment had either sought or hired new leaders. That’s a rate of about 37%.