July 2019

Welcome Back

With the beginning of a new school year, it is always a time in which student and staff expectations and enthusiasm runs high. It also seems to always coincide with a number of changes. Obviously this year is no exception!  First and foremost, we have a number of staff changes that have occurred within our district.  With the departure of Megan Liebe as the District’s Business Manager, we were extremely fortunate to hire Kerry Peyton, a life-long resident of our district, as the new School Board Manager. Caryn Cira was hired to be our new elementary secretary.  Nicole Hepker was also hired this summer to replace Kiley Lorenz at 1st grade.  Beth Dolan and Yvette Bridgewater will be our new preschool instructors and Yvette will oversee the before and after school 3-year old program.  At the secondary level, Kyle Huxford will be our new Language Arts instructor, replacing Lauren Eastburn and Brendan Schott replaces Quentin Stanerson as our new Social Sciences instructor. Anne Boss replaces Susan Cook as one of our new Special Education instructors. So please take time to welcome all of these new individuals to our North Linn family when you have an opportunity to see them in our schools.

Finally, please let me introduce myself.  My name is Doug Tuetken and I am the district’s new Superintendent.  Sara and I are extremely pleased to be a part of this wonderful district.  To give a little background on our family, Sara and I have been blessed with 4 daughters and by the time of this publication possibly 8 grandchildren.  Our oldest resides in Minneapolis with her husband and soon to be 3 children. Our second daughter and her husband live in Iowa City with their 3 daughters. Our third daughter recently moved to Minneapolis with her husband and 9 month old son, and our 4th daughter lives in Des Moines with her husband and their 7 month old daughter.

As most of you are aware, for the coming school year our Board of Director’s has made a decision to share the Superintendent’s position with the Maquoketa Valley Community School District which is located in Delhi.  At this time the sharing agreement will be a one-year trial basis so each district has an opportunity to determine if the shared position is meeting their fiscal and leadership needs.  One of the primary questions that you may have regarding the sharing agreement is, why is and why would our District want to share with Maquoketa Valley?  To answer that question I would like to reference a Cedar Rapids Gazette article that was written by Erin Murphy a little over a year ago.  In the article Ms. Murphy outlines that shared superintendents in our State has more than tripled over the past decade.  The reasons for this sharp increase (and I expect it to continue) is that school districts like North Linn and Maquoketa Valley are always looking for ways to save dollars and increase revenue. Sharing administrative positions does this.  We all realize that funding for public education has become stagnant for quite sometime.  As Ms. Murphy outlined in her article “the decision to share superintendents is tied to a web of fiscal factors…. one is the recent trend of below average increases in state funding to public K-12 education.  In the 38 years between 1973 — when the current school funding formula was written — and 2010, annual state funding to schools increased by 2 percent or less just three times. It has been 2 percent or less in six of the past eight years.”  As the Executive Director from the Iowa Associations of School Board, Lisa Bartusek, recently stated, “school boards consistently prioritize how school districts can maximize current programs for our students while still allocating the right level of resource to that important function of administration and leadership and I believe that’s what the parents and communities and taxpayers of Iowa would absolutely want.”  North Linn and Maquoketa Valley continually examine ways to reduce expenditures and sharing a superintendent position is a way to save dollars.  But a very important advantage to sharing a superintendent is the state incentive, which adds state funding to districts that share administrative personnel.  So North Linn and Maquoketa Valley not only reduce spending by sharing a salary but we receive extra funding from the state.  It is a win-win for both districts. 

Both North Linn and the Maquoketa Valley Board of Directors have agreed to review our agreement each spring to ensure that both districts needs are being met as well as discuss other ways we could possibly share.  Not only am I hopeful, I am confident this will be a great relationship for both districts. In the end, it is best for our kids.

All of us are extremely excited about the 2019 – 2020 school year.  With our new teachers, coaches and support staff that will be joining our North Linn family, I know it will be a fantastic year!  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to give me a call, drop an email, or stop by to visit.  The doors to North Linn will always be open for the parents and patrons of this great school district.