Next fall students in four Kenai Peninsula Borough School District institutions will be greeted with new leadership.
Principals for Homer Flex, Connections Home School Program, Soldotna High School and Tebughna School have been hired to fill the positions being left open by Karen Wessel, Lee Young, Todd Syverson and Marilyn Johnson.
“This is an average number of administrator changes,” said school district spokesperson Pegge Erkeneff. “
Sometimes we have a domino or ripple effect—and we do this year. For example, we are now hiring a new Assistant Principal at Skyview Middle School to replace Mr. (Phillip) Graham who has been hired to be the new principal at Soldotna High School.”
Christopher Brown, the new Homer Flex Principal, has been a high school language arts teacher at Homer Flex since 2010, Erkeneff said.
Richard Bartolowits, the new Connections Principal, began working in the district in 1995 and for the past nine years he has been the KPBSD Distance Learning Coordinator, she said.
Richard Breske, the new Principal-Teacher at Tebughna School in Tyonek has worked in Alaska in several school districts including Yukon Flats, Northwest Arctic, Bering Strait, Aleutians, and Fairbanks, Erkeff said.
“It is a high value to determine that everyone who is hired, especially administrators, are an excellent fit for the mission, vision, and strategic direction of our district,” Erkeneff said. “All employees are expected to have high levels of professionalism and align their actions with district policy.”
The process for hiring school principals is very public, Erkeneff said. The Superintendent of Instruction hosts a meetings at the beginning of the search to determine what members of the community want to see in a new administrator, she said.
Once the position closes, final applicants are selected and interviewed at open meetings, Erkeneff said.
Public comments are welcome following the interviews and are taken into consideration by the superintendent.
“When a decision is made, an offer is made, verbally accepted, announced to the public, and then taken to the school board for final acceptance to offer a contract with KPBSD,” Erkeneff said.
Reach Kelly Sullivan at kelly.sullivan@peninsulaclarion.com
