Ocean View School District superintendent announces retirement
Carol Hansen is retiring after seven years as superintendent of the Ocean View School District, she announced Wednesday.
Hansen, 59, will finish out the school year before leaving the job, she said.
“I’ve been in education for 37 years,” she said. “It’s my choice, it’s on my terms. I’ll be 60 in April, and I always felt that I’d go at 60 or 61. It just felt right.”
District Board of Trustees President Gina Clayton-Tarvin has appointed a subcommittee of herself and Vice President Patricia Singer to lead the board in a selection process for Hansen’s successor. Joseph M. Farley, a superintendent search consultant and former Orange County superintendent, will assist the trustees in the selection process.
Hansen said she is proud of the stability that she brought the district, which has 10 elementary schools, four middle schools and two preschools and serves portions of Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Westminster and Midway City. Since Measure R was passed in 2016, the district has been using the funds to modernize one school each school year. Many of the buildings in the district hadn’t been touched in 50 years, Hansen said.
The district, which has nearly 7,000 students, also now has a science, technology, engineering, arts and math academy, as well as a recently implemented program in dual language immersion.
“I feel very accomplished with the things we did in the last seven years in Ocean View,” Hansen said. “I do believe it’s in a very different place than when I came in. I think there’s a lot of systems and processes that have laid a great foundation for our successful programs to continue, like with our modernizations and our partnership with our unions. I really hope and believe that those will continue.”
Clayton-Tarvin, who has known Hansen for 16 years, said she has always been committed to collaborative problem-solving with employees and maintaining focus on the students’ needs.
“Dr. Hansen created core values of innovation, integrity and equity in our district, and her adherence to those values restored the community’s confidence and pride in our schools,” Clayton-Tarvin said.
Hansen was previously a high school teacher, activities director and swim coach in the Long Beach Unified School District, followed by administrative roles in the Westminster School District and ABC Unified School District. Prior to joining OVSD, she was an assistant superintendent of human resources in the ABC District.
She said the passage of Measure R, the first general obligations bond in district history, was one of the highlights of her tenure. Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic for nearly two years has undoubtedly been one of the toughest tasks.
“I truly am looking forward to being like a real retired person,” she said, adding that she likes being outdoors and swimming in the Alamitos Bay in Long Beach. “I’ll just be able to do those things in the middle of the week instead of just on the weekend.
“The last two years have been challenging. I’m proud of the work that we did. We were one of the first districts to open, and we stayed open, but it has been challenging work. I’m looking for some downtime.”
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