Jerome B. Jones, the first black superintendent of the St. Louis, Mo., school system, has announced his resignation, effective June 30--a year before his contract was due to expire.
Mr. Jones apparently surprised school-board members with the resignation, which came only a week after the school system won approval of its first bond issue in 28 years.
When Mr. Jones came to the district in 1983, it had lost its state AAA bond rating and was under a court order to reduce classroom size.
In recent months, a state audit had criticized Mr. Jones’s expenditures, and the board established new guidelines to regulate spending.
Mr. Jones has not announced his future plans.
