Wendy McCutcheon is moving onto better opportunities involving her career life.

Each year there is a tremendous turn over of teachers at Bullitt East; the school loses anywhere between five to ten teachers every year. But in the case of McCutcheon, she has recently been given a career opportunity at the new Mt. Washington Park, in which she has accepted the opportunity and has left the Bullitt East staff as of Friday, Sept. 28.

After working for Bullitt East from 2012-2018, McCutcheon is leaving to accept a new career opportunity that should benefit her down the road due to a considerable pay raise and other benefits. Although McCutcheon may be leaving, she still plans on providing opportunities to students in the Bullitt County District through employment and co-oping. McCutcheon has made an everlasting impact on the future of being college and career ready at Bullitt East.

McCutcheon was offered a job as the new Mount Washington Park Director because of the amount of passion she has put into her career. Going from the College and Career Coordinator to the Park Director will be a huge change in her life. At Bullitt East, McCutcheon was responsible for tracking state accountability and career pathway data for Federal Perkins Funding, hosting college fairs, assisting in testing, scheduling and any other task assigned by Principal Chris Mason. At her new occupation, McCutcheon will run the park, schedule events, make sure workers are maintaining the park grounds and facilities and manage anything else that may come across her plate.

“I have worked for BCPS for 10 years and have never used a sick day, personal or emergency day. I have never been late. I work hard when at work and manage my time to best benefit the students. Because of these characteristics, I believe is why I was offered the position of Mt.Washington Park Director after recognizing the passion I put in my job. I chose to leave because of the benefits and I am very sad about leaving my students and staff. I absolutely loved my position and it was a difficult choice,” said McCutcheon.

Since McCutcheon had the responsibility of making sure students were either college or career ready, she formed relationships with students and coworkers and is very upset that she had to leave them, and the impact she made on them, behind. Because of this, she still plans on continuing to make sure she can still provide opportunities to Bullitt East students through summer jobs and other employment options. “I will continue to provide opportunities for Bullitt East students through employment opportunities, co-oping and apprenticeships,” said McCutcheon.

The administration is supposed to wait at least 15 days before they start interviewing people to replace McCutcheon’s position. During this wait, the administration has began accepting applications for their potential replacements in hopes of slimming down the selection of applicants to choose from. From the time of McCutcheon leaving on Friday, Sept. 28 to whenever they hire a replacement, not much will change in the College and Career Center and things will proceed to run smoothly as administration searches for a replacement.

“We actually have started to take applications. They have to be posted for 15 days and then after that posting, we will start interviewing people to fill her spot. We already have several applicants for her position,” said Mason

McCutcheon has helped not only the staff but the school as a whole to adapt to the changes with becoming college and career ready that the state has made within recent years. Although she’s not allowed to have any say in the changes that have been made, she makes it a lot easier for students to adjust to them. “I think Wendy has done a great job. We just have to continue adapting to the new standards and requirements that the state sets for us every year. We’ll be looking at different pathways and adding different pathways that students are interested in and we’re just going to continue on the track that we are on to make sure all of our students gain all those certifications and requirements,” said Mason.

McCutcheon got the opportunity to work with the guidance counselors  on several occasions. Savannah Richardson, Dana Steinmetz and Crystal Barr have worked with her on a daily basis and have  formed a very positive relationship with her. They formed this relationship by working on projects together, such as organizing the career fair every year,  meeting with students to help them find the best career pathway, getting prepared for EOP assessments and building the master schedule.

“Her positive, go-getter attitude that helped each student and teacher believe that anything is possible and that she had our back. She moved this school forward by helping us reach 100 percent College or Career Ready, raising our accountability score as a school and helping each student graduate,” said guidance counselor Dana Steinmetz.

McCutcheon may have only been gone from Bullitt East for a week so far, but her disappearance has not gone unnoticed. Just recently whenever the students were testing for the PSAT, it took five staff members to plan everything and set up computers because the administration is so accustomed to McCutcheon handling that on her own.