Fresh faces are filling three of four administrative positions this year.The new administrators are Principal Travis Howard, Assistant Principal Elias Ashton and Assistant Principal Shelly McKnight, with long time administrator Greg Mulkey as a third assistant principal.
Each individual administrator has their own jobs and duties they perform at Marshfield.
Howard, a district administrator of 16 years, is the new principal of Marshfield whose jobs include leading the school, creating the class registration master schedule, evaluating teachers and creating programs to improve Marshfield.
According to Howard the most difficult factors in running Marshfield are all of the moving parts and keeping everything moving in the right direction as well as managing the 70 plus support staff.
“I don’t think there’s something that is glaring that stands out as hard,” Howard said.
In fact, being a principal has more than a few benefits, according to Howard. He loves interacting with the students and helping them achieve their potential.
Ashton, a first year administrator, is the head of discipline and attendance. He also helps out with teacher evaluations and clubs.
“My main duties have to do with attendance and discipline,” Ashton said. “The fun stuff.”
Ashton said he enjoys being around students, and especially enjoys being able to joke around with them. His goal for the year is to know the name of every person on the campus.
“My job is to establish relationships with students,” Ashton said. “Unfortunately for me, a lot of them [relationships] are negative due to the nature of their visits.”
According to Ashton, the most difficult part of his job is to meeting students and parents in a negative environment because he enjoys working with and helping students.
Mulkey, who has been an administrator for 25 years, is primarily the athletic director for grades 7-12, but also helps with scheduling graduation, supervision and teacher evaluations.
Unlike last year, the positions of athletic director and the dean of students are separate, a distinction Mulkey said is best for Marshfield.
“With this size of school, and the amount of students that we have here, it’s really necessary to have two separate positions,” Mulkey said.
Mulkey said the most difficult part of the job is when you need to deal with issues that bring negativity to the school, students or staff, especially when they affect others.
According to Mulkey, school means a lot to him. He said he loves the school and the youth here, as well as the school spirit.
“I’ve always loved school, being at school in high school, even while I was younger,” Mulkey said.
McKnight has been in the district for four years, but an administrator for 14 years. She is responsible for teacher evaluations, TAG and Marshfield student enrollment to Destinations and Resource Link.
Destinations is a program that allows students to work at their own pace incorporating hands on work. Resource Link is a K-12 charter school with a focus on individualization for home-schooled children and self-motivated middle and high school students.
McKnight is the principal of Harding and provides support to Sunset and Millicoma in regards to advanced seventh graders.
“The most challenging thing is making sure that every problem has a solution that works for people,” McKnight said.
McKnight said she loves to interact with students on a daily basis, both at Harding and Marshfield.
With this new administration comes some changes, such as the ability to enroll in Destinations and Resource Link, or vice versa.
“I think that the more students that have experiences in both buildings will create a better understanding of what all the programs are about,” McKnight said.