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Creston High School will have a new principal for the first time since 2000.
At press time today, the Creston School Board was taking action on a resignation submitted by Todd Wolverton, who just completed his ninth year as high school principal. He succeeded Darrel Bartling for the 2000-01 school year.
Wolverton, 47, will become high school principal at North Fayette in West Union, located 45 miles from Waterloo and 30 miles south of Decorah in northeast Iowa. With 250 high school students, North Fayette is smaller than Creston. In sports classifications, it is a Class 2A school, while Creston is 3A.
Wolverton is nonetheless impressed with the North Fayette district.
"There are a lot of positives about the school district," Wolverton said. "It's a positive atmosphere, a place where they have a vision that's in line with mine as to where a school needs to go. And, from my perspective, it's time for a change."
Wolverton and wife Tammy are the parents of two children who will enter the eighth and fifth grades in North Fayette schools. Timing was a big factor, said Wolverton, recently frustrated in trying to enact a required senior project at Creston High School. The proposal met with public opposition and the school board modified it, delaying any immediate requirement.
"We recognized that we needed a change, and if we were going to do it, with our kids at the ages that they are now, we needed it to happen," Wolverton said. "I've always said the ideal size of a high school is 500, and this is under that. But, it will give me an opportunity to get to know the kids better."
Search begins
Creston Superintendent Tim Hood said with the start of school only two months away, the search will begin in earnest immediately. He did not indicate if there would be internal candidates within the district's administrative staff.
"We will start with running advertisements and, depending on what happens, take action at that time," Hood said. "We'll get this thing moving as quick as we can."
Wolverton, a native of Oakland in western Iowa, received his bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska and master's from Iowa State University. This will be his first career venture into northeast Iowa.
"I could have stayed in Creston forever," Wolverton said. "There are a lot of people we feel very close to, and we feel like we accomplished a lot of positive things in nine years. But we also recognize we need a change. In this profession you need to re-energize yourself sometimes. They have a shared superintendent now (with Turkey Valley) and he's a visionary. We had a common acquaintance. The opportunity and the time was right."
New boss
John Rothlisberger will begin July 1 as superintendent at North Fayette as well as Turkey Valley. He said Wolverton fits the bill as someone who can operate a school independently when he is working in the Turkey Valley district at Jackson Junction.
"Todd's leadership will fit well with us up here," Rothlisberger said in a Creston News Advertiser interview. "He had done his practicum at Center Point-Urbana with Dave Hanaman just before I got there. Dave was high school principal and I worked with him. They have kept in contact."
Wolverton, named Iowa secondary principal of the year in 2005, has been involved at the state level in a variety of professional development projects that were noticed by Rothlisberger.
"When you read the work he has been doing and things he has been involved with, at North Fayette that is exactly what we are looking for in a leader at the school," Rothlisberger said. "It will be a good community for Todd and Tammy and their family."