Meet Clintonville’s new superintendent
By Bert Lehman
After beginning his professional career as a teacher, Troy Kuhn realized that his future was in school administration.
“I’ve always been a person who cares for others. I’ve always been someone who leads with the head, as well as the heart,” Kuhn said. “I taught for many years, and as I taught more, I felt I could help a lot more people going into administration.”
Kuhn’s first school administration job was with the Keshena Primary School on the Menominee Indian Reservation.
“I had a good time up there, learned a lot of things,” Kuhn said. “Then the job opened up at Clintonville Middle School, so I came here in 2018, and I was the middle school principal for four years. At that time, I was continuing my education and knew I wanted to become a superintendent at that time. I didn’t think I’d be superintendent this fast. When Dr. Dyb left, I applied and I’m here in Clintonville, hopefully for the long run.”
Kuhn said the Clintonville School District has a lot of potential, especially in the trades. He believes that area businesses can benefit from the school district increasing the trade programs.
“That’s kind of what drew me here,” he said. “It’s not a huge town, it’s not a small town, it’s kind of in the middle. The agricultural community, the trades community, that’s kind of right up my alley.”
The size of the Clintonville School District was also appealing to Kuhn.
“The big thing is, when you’re a student, you’re not a number,” Kuhn said. “People know you by name, people can still connect with families. People can still have those types of relationships when a district is not too big. But it’s not too small where you’re forced to be friends with everyone.”
Covid
Kuhn has been superintendent since July 1, and as one would expect, Covid has been a huge part of his job since then. He said he is involved in three different group meetings in which Covid is discussed. These meetings are with superintendents from the Fox Valley, superintendents from Waupaca County, and also CESA 8 superintendents.
“I would say the hardest thing of sitting in this seat the first month was that everybody in the state knew that Clintonville was starting two weeks early because of our referendum (construction),” Kuhn said. “When it came to the planning for Covid, the mitigation process, news stations were all calling to find out what Clintonville was doing.
“Being a first-year superintendent, you know, I didn’t necessarily want the spotlight on Clintonville. Eventually I would love to show all the great things Clintonville is doing, but in the days of Covid we were forced to be in the spotlight. I would say that was not only tough for myself, but also for the administration team because we’re kind of laying the groundwork of what other school districts are doing. Hitting the news before the other school districts. I would say that was difficult. That was mentally and emotionally draining.”
After dealing with Covid for more than a year, Kuhn said the district is better prepared to handle the challenges Covid brings. He said through communications with other superintendents, the Clintonville School District, as well as other area school districts are able to look at past data and determine what worked and what didn’t work last year.
“When I say we’re more prepared, I’d say we’re making more data-driven decisions instead of emotional decisions,” Kuhn said.
When asked if having a split school board regarding Covid issues was good or bad for the district, Kuhn said he didn’t agree that the school board is split.
“I would say every single school board member wants to do what’s best for kids,” he said.
Kuhn added that the debate about students wearing face masks is a debate taking place across the entire state.
“I feel that the arrow was pointed on school district superintendents and school boards in the state of Wisconsin, and that’s very unfortunate because a lot of the local and state powers have been taken away from others,” Kuhn said. “So, now the pressure is being put on superintendents to make those decisions. Where in other situations that wouldn’t necessarily be up to the local control of the school board.
“We meet with medical professionals weekly. We meet with health and human services weekly. We meet as superintendents weekly and everybody has their different personal views, but when it comes down to it, we gotta do what we feel is best for all stakeholders, all students in the district.
“When it comes down to it, the only disagreement is going to be what’s the role of the school district, and specifically face masking. Do we force the kids to facemask or don’t we? Is that the job of the school district, or is that the job of the parents? I would say that’s the big disagreement going across the state of Wisconsin right now.”
With more than two weeks of school completed already, Kuhn said there were a couple of positive Covid cases, but the positives were not school related.
“They’re because of contact outside of school or because of family members. Because of that we’ve quarantined a handful of students,” Kuhn said. “What’s really hurting us right now is allergy season. Students who have multiple Covid symptoms, but may be allergy related, we’re walking that fine line of do we send them home, don’t we send them home. …I would say the nursing staff has been working extra hard and thanks to them, we’re kind of able to currently navigate through this, especially during the allergy season and Covid possibly hitting its peak here in the next month.
Construction project
Kuhn is also now more involved with the construction project that will eventually move the middle school students to an addition at the high school and move the elementary students to a renovated middle school. This project was made possible when residents in the district approved it in a referendum.
“I think the referendum is amazing. I think the referendum is a blessing to not only the district, but to the community,” Kuhn said.
He added, “Now that we’re going to have a northern campus, we’re going to be able to be more versatile in things that we can do just because we are closer together. The school is the heartbeat of the community and the taxpayers were able to come up and support a $37 million referendum really shows they are vested in the schools and they care about their students’ education.”
Goals
Kuhn said he set goals for himself, with one of them being staying on as superintendent longer than 3-5 years, which he said is the average length of time superintendents stay at a district.
“I want to be the superintendent that makes a long-lasting career in the school district,” he said. “Anytime there is change in the district, people stress. So, I want to work with the staff, work with the administration, work with the community and really build the district that all stakeholders want. When you have changeover in administration, that a lot of times gets put to the backburner.”
To help achieve this goal, Kuhn said he plans to be visible in the schools by doing walkthroughs.
“Oftentimes as you move up in administration you forget about doing those walkthroughs and being personable and being out in the community and just talking to people, having those small conversations,” he said. “That’s my number one goal this year, get out and talk to people and learn from the members of the community of what they want to see the Clintonville School District to be.”
A goal Kuhn has for the district is looking at grading for learning.
“Are we giving kids, not only the curriculum they need to be successful, but how are we assessing those kids so they can be successful no matter what educational path they choose?” Kuhn said. “Whether they go to college, whether they go for a technical degree, or whether they go right into the workforce, so we’re applying those real-world applications and skills in every single lesson we teach and every single formal assessment we have. I think that’s really, really important.
“That is a philosophical change that we need to work through, not only the teachers and the students, but also the parents. What does it mean to grade for learning?”