The Shullsburg School Board recently approved the hiring back of previous district administrator, Loras Kruser, in a part-time administrator role at their special board meeting held on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
    Along with the hiring of Kruser on a part-time basis, the board will also begin looking at a restructuring of the administration staff roles at the school.
    Kruser’s first day back on the job was Wednesday, Nov. 4, and although initially his schedule may be somewhat flexible as to which days he will be in the office, eventually once things have gotten more established, he hopes a regular schedule will emerge.
    When Kruser retired at the end of the last school year, the school board began to look at their options and ultimately decided to bring in John Timmerman as an interim administrator after going through an initial application and interview process and not really finding someone they thought would fit the role. Later in the year the board decided to search specifically for a part-time administrator and put out another advertisement, which resulted in two interviews.
    Also at that point, school board president, Dan Morrissey, approached Kruser and asked if he would be interested in coming back to take on the part-time role.
    “Loras was very good with finances and he’s been doing this a long time,” explained Morrissey. “We really started to realize what we had in him, once he had left. We’re very grateful that he’s decided to come back.”
    “I’m excited to be back,” said Kruser. “It’s re-energizing to look at the position from a different perspective and reinvigorating to have a clear focus. I’m looking forward to finding ways to keep the district fiscally sound and to helping provide teachers with the tools they need to provide a good education for students in the district and keep the district sound.”
    With Kruser in only a part-time role, the administrator position will mostly focus on financial duties and board operation going forward, meaning that a lot of the day to day operations and running of the school will be shifted on to the principal’s plate.
    This change and shifting of responsibilities is also why the board is looking at a change in the administration structure as a whole.
    As this will be a completely new structure and a new way of operating the district for Shullsburg Schools, the board and administration are beginning to closely examine what exactly the district will need and how best to go about it.
    Although this is still very early in that process, the board and administration want to get a lot of input from staff on what they think is needed to strengthen the district.
    “We started internal discussion for the first time Nov. 5,” said Kruser. “We’re definitely considering all input and we’re not going to rush anything, but if the right opportunity presents itself we’ll be willing to take action and move forward with it in a positive way for the district.”
    Kruser said the administration will be continuing to collect input from the staff at this point, and then go from there.
    Morrissey noted that the board has also checked with other districts who have had a similar administrative structure with a part-time administrator to see what they’ve done and how things have been handled.
    “There might be a few bumps in the road along the way, but we’ll get through it by working together,” said Morrissey. “When you’ve got a team working together towards the same outcome it’s a lot easier.”