{"id":432206,"date":"2026-01-27T06:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T06:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/432206\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T06:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T06:09:15","slug":"former-pps-administrator-picked-to-lead-school-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/432206\/","title":{"rendered":"Former PPS administrator picked to lead school district"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEORIA (25News Now<\/a>) – The Board of Education for Peoria Public Schools has selected its next superintendent, while the other finalist for the position will take over as the district\u2019s newly created deputy superintendent. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a homecoming of sorts for the next superintendent. Dr. Jerry Bell, who used to be Academic Instructional Officer and Executive Director of Middle Schools for PPS before serving as Deputy Chief of Student Support for the Syracuse, New York City School District. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have bestowed in me the confidence, the rituals if you will, of the office of superintendent, and believe you may, I am not going to disappoint you,\u201d Bell told the school board Monday night. <\/p>\n

He replaces Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, who\u2019s retiring when her contract expires at the end of the current school year. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an awesome responsibility. With your partnership, working hand in hand, we\u2019re going to move this district to greater heights,\u201d said Bell. <\/p>\n

Dr. Renee Andrews, currently assistant principal at Richwoods High School in Peoria, was hired as deputy superintendent for PPS. <\/p>\n

District officials have not released the salaries, or other terms of the contracts they reached with Bell and Andrews. Kherat earned a base salary of almost $323,000 during the 2024-2025 school year, according to the PPS website<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Five of the seven board members voted for Bell and Andrews. Two members, Christina Rose and Brenda Wilson, abstained saying the selection process lacked transparency. <\/p>\n

Wilson said of the 14 applicants, the search firm released to her information on just four of the candidates. <\/p>\n

Despite their votes, Rose and Wilson pledged to work with the new administrators. <\/p>\n

Voting with the majority was School Board President Gregory Wilson. <\/p>\n

\u201cTheir combined expertise, dedication, and understanding of our community\u2019s needs will ensure a bright future for our students and staff,\u201d Wilson said of Bell and Andrews in a prepared statement. <\/p>\n

You can watch 25News<\/a> – any newscast, anywhere – streaming LIVE<\/a> on 25NewsNow.com<\/a>, our 25News mobile app<\/a>, and on our WEEK 25News SmartTV streaming app<\/a>. Learn more about how you can get connected to 25News streaming live news here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WEEK. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEORIA (25News Now) – The Board of Education for Peoria Public Schools has selected its next superintendent, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18290,4,450,204900,204901,20041,526,204902,451,204895,3,58793,204898,5572,204896,204899,14934,3858,204897,6161,11823,452,453],"class_list":["post-432206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-board","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-brenda-wilson","tag-christina-rose","tag-deputy","tag-education","tag-gregory-wilson","tag-headlines","tag-jerry-bell","tag-news","tag-peoria","tag-pps","tag-president","tag-renee-andrews","tag-richwoods","tag-salary","tag-school","tag-sharon-desmoulin-kherat","tag-superintendent","tag-syracuse","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}