William Frank Valdina, 73, of Needham, retired director of guidance for the Needham public school system, died of cancer Thursday at his home.

Mr. Valdina was born in Somerville. He graduated from the Dedham school system and, in 1936, from American International College in Springfield. He received his master's degree in education from Boston University in 1944 and performed his doctoral studies at Harvard University. Mr. Valdina joined the Needham school system in 1945 as a teacher and guidance director. He designed guidance programs offered to students, parents and staff and introduced psychiatric consulting to the system. He retired from the Needham school system in 1969 and then entered fulltime private practice and provided psychological evaluations and psychotherapy to children and adults.

Mr. Valdina also held guidance conferences and workshops at the Perkins School for the Blind and was a consulting psychiatrist at the Beaver Country Day School in Brookline.

He was a guidance and mental health instructor at Tufts University and also taught and lectured at Northeastern University and the Deaconess School of Nursing.

Mr. Valdina leaves his wife, Joan (Sannella); two sons, Eric J. of Chatham, N.Y., and David L. Valdina of Bedford; a daughter, Susan V. Krasnow of Rochester, N.H.; two sisters, Mary Hunter of Needham and Lillian Weaver of Florida; and eight grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Monday, April 6, at noon in the First Parish Unitarian, Needham.

Globe Newspaper Company, Date: April 4, 1987 Page: 9 Section: OBITUARY