Originally Knapp was to finish out the current school year but he reported to the school board that Holbrook was ready to assume control of the district.
Holbrook is the former associate superintendent and has been with the city schools since 2015.
The Journal-News sat down with Holbrook to learn more about him. Here are five things to know:
1. He played varsity baseball — center field — at Tecumseh High School in Clark County, Ohio and was All-League and says "hitting was my strongest suit."
“My senior year I hit over .400 and I played a little bit of college baseball at Wright State but not much to report on there.
“I’m a Reds fan and a huge Ohio State football fan.”
2. "I mowed 80-100 lawns a week with another guy to help pay for Wright State (tuition)," he said.
3. He taught in classrooms for 10 years – Ohio studies, American government and economics – at Cincinnati Public Schools before going into school building administration. He also coached boys high school basketball and baseball at Cincinnati's famed and former Cincinnati Academy of Physical Education (CAPE).
4. His first principal position was with Cincinnati's Western Hills High School, and he later led Hughes High School. During his leadership both schools earned "School Of Promise" honors awarded by the Ohio Department of Education. Later moved his family of wife and now two grown boys to Butler County – where they have since lived for nearly 25 years – and was principal of Lakota Schools' Plains Middle School.
He then worked central office administrative positions in Hamilton County’s Mt. Healthy and Northwest school systems before accepting the assistant superintendent’s job in Hamilton in 2015.
5. "My wife would say I'm a neat freak or she would have a different word for it," joked Holbrook sitting in his immaculately organized office in the Hamilton schools' central office.
“You’re not going anywhere you want to go unless you’re organized,” he said.
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