(Spirit Lake)—The Spirit Lake Elementary School has a new Principal. Meeting in special session, the school board Wednesday approved the hiring of Micah Gearhart to the position. Gearhart has been Elementary Principal the past four years for the Camanche School District. Prior to that he was Dean of Students at Armstrong-Ringsted for two years. He began his teaching career in the Estherville-Lincoln Central School District.
Gearhart is married with three children.
Superintendent Dr. David Smith tells KUOO news there are several things that stood out about Gearhart…(click here for comment.) “His communication, his organization. And probably most importantly I think that people will see is his focus on student achievement is second to none. So we’re really excited about that. We have a great thing going in our elementary. We have great staff. You know Shane has done an excellent job for the last few years and we’re excited to have Micah join us and to build off of what we have in place and to bring his own twist to learning to the district. And I think he’s going to be a person that is going to emerse himself into the community. Not only in our school district but into the community. And we’re excited to have him, his family here and just get started next year.”
Dr. Smith says they were very pleased with the number and quality of applicants for the position…(click here for comment.) “We had right around 25 applicants. We had a teacher committe, an administrator committee, a staff committee, a parent committee. We got together and reviewed all the applicants and went through a process to narrow that down to about seven. From that point we narrowed it down even further, down to four. It was four different applicants who had different backgrounds and different strengths, etcetra. And went through a thorough interview process and in the end Micah really stood out as someone who was just going to come in and be a very, very strong leader for us. We could have gone a couple different directions but we are just really, really pleased that we are able to get somebody of Micah’s caliber to join us here in the district and add another great leader into the district.”
Dr. Smith adds the fact so many highly qualified people applied says something about the community and the school district…(click here for comment.) “Well I think it speaks highly of the Spirit Lake School District, the area. I mean who wouldn’t want to live in the lakes area? You know we’ve got a good thing going here and there’s word out on the street and educational community about Spirit Lake. We have great teachers here who are very passionate, work extremely hard and have high expectations. Like some other school districts around here we’re really trying to push to be innovative. I think we’re doing a good job of that. The word’s out on the street and people notice. 25 applications at this part of the state is pretty darn solid.”
Micah Gearhart begins his new job as Spirit Lake Elementary Principal this coming July 1st. He succeeds Shane Boeve.
