Croghan recaps first six months as superintendent

Paul Croghan began his job in July as shared superintendent of schools at Nodaway Valley and CAM.

At that time, Croghan talked a lot about aligning needs of the community with those of the school and visa versa. He also talked about having an attention to detail when it comes to facility needs in both of the districts.

Six months later, those are still two things he’s very passionate about.

In terms of facilities needs, Croghan stated in an interview with the Free Press last week that he’s proud of how the gymnasium roof replacement project at NV has been handled. It needed to be replaced after a storm hit the area in August and the project was completed by early December, in time for basketball season.

Croghan said that KPE gave a report to the NV school board on mechanical needs for the buildings at its December meeting. It’s all part of the board reviewing and investigating facility assessments.

There are many other reasons he thinks the first half of this school year has gone well, but he knows more work is ahead.

“Those were large number projections and things like that. I think maybe the next step for the boards are getting [applications] for a construction manager. Moving forward in that area it’s to see how things match up in revenue sources, age and priorities,” Croghan said. “If the board and the community do what I think they’ll do, they want to renovate and get the buildings fixed completely. That would take some community involvement as far as prioritizing things because there are always more needs than there are resources.”

Croghan stated he has become very involved in the Adair County community in his time here thus far. He’s joined the Greenfield Economic Board, helped with fundraising efforts for the elementary playground project and has kept involved with Greenfield Chamber/Main Street and Development Activities.

“I’ve spent a lot of time just learning in the first six months, asking questions of why we do this or how do we do this? It seems to me there’s always something you’re dealing with with buildings,” Croghan said. “You’re learning staff, learning how things work.”

One fun opportunity in his first six months was when Croghan was able to teach a group of Karen Schulteis’ Family and Consumer Sciences students how to grill various cuts of steak and pork.

“She asked me if I’d help grill because she had groups inside and groups outside. I want to say it was mid-October, but one day we went out and grilled different kinds of steak, then the next day it was pork chops and they had different rubs they put on them,” Croghan said. “I got to meet some kids, interact with some kids that day, and I obviously ate very well those days.”

Croghan is committed to keeping lines of communication open between the school and community to revolutionize the way education happens.

“We’re working toward the community and [area] businesses to make connections with the school district to transform the way we teach a little bit,” he said. “Building those relationships and making education relevant to students, building partnerships and connections for students.”

Those connections just aren’t for the students. A few different teachers have taken advantage of externship opportunities during recent summers and are able to take those experiences back into the classroom.

“They can bring that knowledge and skillsets back to the classroom to ask why we’re teaching math the way we teach it or why are we teaching science or business — whatever it is. Those are some of the initial conversations we’re having. It will take some time and it will be very specific for our communities,” Croghan said. “You’re not always worried about building a building, you’re worried about building an education program that gets kids out into the community and partners with that makes sense right now and what will make sense over time.”