When school resumes in August in the Dunklin R-5 School District, there will be changes in the administrative lineup.
Those changes include:
■ Mike Golden, now the district’s director of special services, will become assistant superintendent.
■ Brian Johnson, currently the assistant principal at Alton High School, will become the principal at Senn-Thomas Middle School.
■ Tom Moreland, who has taught special education at Herculaneum High School for three years, will replace Golden as director of special services.
■ Christa Weber, a teacher in the Northwest R-1 School District, will become the director of the Taylor Early Childhood Center, a role that Golden also filled.
Golden, 35, will fill a vacancy created when Brian Tharp abruptly announced his retirement last August.
While Tharp concentrated on buildings and grounds, Golden will focus on curriculum.
“The way the duties were restructured made it attractive,” he said of his reason for pursuing the assistant superintendent’s job.
“I felt like that was an area that I could bring something to the table, something challenging, an area that I could make a difference working with the entire staff rather than just one department,” he said.
“This is the first time a full-time person is in charge of curriculum, so that’s really exciting. I’ll have other hats to wear, but curriculum will be my main focus.”
Superintendent Stan Stratton said he welcomes the change of responsibilities.
“I’d compare it to a college, where you have a college president and a provost in charge of instruction. Mike will be more of a provost. Not that I won’t be involved and responsible for those things, and not that he won’t be involved in anything else involving a school district, but he’ll be able to devote more of his attention to those things than I can dedicate.”
Golden, who was chosen from a field of 32 applicants, will be paid $102,000 a year. He now makes $74,858 as director of special services.
Stratton said he’s looking forward to filling the assistant superintendent’s slot.
“I’m definitely looking forward to the help, that’s for sure,” he said. “We have a good staff here who have helped this year, and we’ve at least kept our heads above water, but I can move on to concentrate on some issues in more depth with Mike here.
“Things are getting done, but maybe not to the depth that they’ve been in the past.”
A 1995 Potosi High graduate, Golden has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Central Methodist University, a special education certificate from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, a master’s degree in special education administration from William Woods University and is working on a doctorate degree in educational leadership at Maryville University.
Golden said he’s looking forward to getting involved in his new duties.
“I’m hopeful that in my new position, I’ll spend more time in the buildings, and be able to work with the building principals to help teachers get better. When you give teachers the resources to be successful, you’re helping all 1,500 kids in the district.”
His wife, Carla, teaches special education for the Hillsboro R-3 School District. Their family, which includes two daughters, Madison, 13, and Mackenzie, 10, and a son, Camden, 1, lives in Hillsboro.
Change at top at Senn-Thomas
Johnson will replace Jeremy Davidson, who moves on after one year at Senn-Thomas. He will be principal at New Bloomfield High School, which is closer to Moberly, where he and his wife are from.
Johnson, 41, has worked for 18 years in Illinois schools in a variety of roles – administration, teaching and coaching track and boys basketball.
At one of seven assistant principals at the 2,000-student Alton High, he leads the school’s Truancy Alternative Program. He also has been the Freshman Academy lead administrator and chief testing coordinator and has been assistant principal of the school’s ROTC academy.
He has a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Illinois-Springfield.
“Everything I’ve done has helped me toward this opportunity,” he said. “The bottom line at the end of the day is I love kids, and I love working with kids. My No. 1 priority is making sure that they’re able to compete in the global competition we have. It’s tough out there to get jobs.”
He said he’s looking forward to working in a middle school.
“On paper, it looks like all I’ve got is high school experience, but a lot of what I’ve done has been tied to middle school students transitioning to high school,” he said.
“During my last teaching position, I was put in charge of piloting a transition program for eighth-graders. As part of that, I had to design a curriculum, perform some administrative functions and also teach.”
“My mantra, what I tell the kids on the loudspeaker every morning, is to hit the RRSK – Respect, Responsibility, Safety and Kindness. When I was filling out the application, I noticed that they talked about respect and responsibility, so we’re speaking the same language.”
Born and raised in Alton, Johnson’s family moved to Springfield, Ill, where he graduated from Southeast High School.
He and his wife, Tracey, have two daughters, a preschooler and a first-grader, and college-age son.
Johnson was selected from a field of 23 candidates. He will be paid a $88,000 salary next year.
One job has been split into two
Two administrators have been hired to take over Golden’s duties as director of special services.
Moreland will carry that title, while Weber will take over the administration of the Taylor Early Childhood Center.
“We’ve always had the special services director, but when the (Jefferson County Special Services co-op) dissolved, the early childhood director was added onto the job,” Stratton said. “The program has continued to grow until this point, when we felt we needed a person to address all their energies to that position.
“Really, instead of splitting Mike’s job into two it is taking off additional duties that were added when we opened the Taylor Early Childhood Center.”
Golden, a former special education teacher and area coordinator for the old co-op, was hired by Dunklin when the co-op split up.
At the same time, Dunklin assumed running the early childhood center for its students as well as those from Windsor, Festus, Crystal City and Jefferson R-7 and the administration of that building also fell to Golden.
“I’ve been in charge of Dunklin’s entire special education department, preschool to high school, which can range from 3 years old to 21 years old if a high school student is severely disabled,” Golden said.
Golden said over the last five years, the early childhood program has expanded greatly.
“It’s more than doubled in the amount of students and staff. It’s gotten to the point where it’s hard to do justice to both jobs. Leading the early childhood program takes away from the things I’d like to do as special services director, and at the same time, I’m needed there.”
Stratton agreed, noting that the early childhood center has expanded from three teachers to eight next year, when it will operate five days instead of four.
“We have more students, more teachers and we’re very much interested in helping it to grow more in the future. The two jobs have quickly grown too big for just one person to do,” he said.
“I knew it would take two people to replace me,” Golden said, tongue in cheek.
Native son Moreland to lead special ed
Moreland, 36, was chosen for the special services position from 16 applicants.
A 1995 Herculaneum High graduate, he’s taught special education at Herculaneum High School for three years.
“Special education grows on you,” he said. “It becomes who you are.”
Before that, he taught at Hillsboro, Windsor and Fox. He said such varied experience will help him deal with the administrative part of the special education field, which involves communication with the other districts that share some special education services.
“It’s given me the perspective since I’ve worked in districts large and small, and I can see where they’ve been and where they are,” he said.
He said giving up direct classroom duties will be a transition.
“As a classroom teacher, you help students on a personal level, which is gratifying,” he said. “As an administrator, you hope to impact more students. But I love the classroom. I’ll definitely miss it.”
Moreland received a bachelor’s degree from Central Methodist University and a special education certificate and a master’s degree in educational administration from Missouri Baptist University.
He has been married for 15 years to Sherri Moreland, a teacher at Pevely Elementary School. They have two sons, Joshua, 10, and Jacob, 7, both of whom attend school in the district.
He said he doesn’t plan sweeping changes.
“Mike has come in and established a strong program,” he said. “The district and the staff all want to do the best for what is best for students, so it’s an ideal situation to step into.
“I want to continue building a really strong program that we already have. When the opportunity presents itself, we will build onto it, but I’m really here to serve the community, the staff and the students. I want to do what I can to help them – that’s my goal.”
Moreland will be paid $72,000 a year.
Taylor building gets its ‘principal’
Weber, 32, also worked for the old county co-op and then moved on to Northwest R-1, where she has been the deaf and hard-of-hearing teacher at House Springs Elementary School. She also travels to the Northwest Early Childhood Center in House Springs and Valley Middle School.
She is entering her ninth year in education.
“She stood out because of her knowledge of special education,” Stratton said. “She has a background in special education and some administrative experience. She’s a real dynamic person. Her experience as an area coordinator for the old co-op also was important.”
The center serves both children identified as having special needs and children of all abilities.
She and her husband, Matt, live in Pevely. Their daughter, Ava, 5, starts kindergarten this fall and Emma, 3, will attend the Taylor center.
“I live in the district (in Pevely) and both of my daughters will be going to school there,” she said. “I’m going to love to be closer to home.”
A graduate of Rockwood Summit High School, she has a bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing science from Southeast Missouri State and master’s degrees in deaf education from Washington University and elementary administration from Missouri Baptist University.
“My background is in special education, but with two daughters in the early childhood stage, I really enjoy that part of education,” she said.
She said she’ll miss the connections she’s made but looks forward to new ones.
“It’s with great excitement and anxiety I leave my current district. I feel that building relationships is an integral part of our job as educators and I have built wonderful relationships with staff, students, and parents in the Northwest R-1 district. I look forward to building wonderful relationships in my home district, Dunklin R-5.”
Weber was chosen from 22 applicants for the job. She will be paid $58,000 on a 10-month contract.