New principals for Campbell Elementary and Ayres Elementary were introduced Wednesday during RE-1 Valley Superintendent Shila Adolf’s weekly community update via Zoom, but Ayres Principal Joe Skerjanec’s move to a new position raised some questions.
Adolf started the meeting by apologizing to staff at Ayres that they did not receive her email notification announcing the school’s new principal and that they had to find out who their new leader was through the community update.
She explained that Skerjanec is not leaving the district, but has been asked to take on a new role coaching students.
“We’re definitely redesigning and rethinking counseling by putting our administrators in a different position and recruiting,” Adolf said, explaining they will be using ESSER COVID-19 relief funds (RE-1 will be receiving just under $5 million), “to try to do some programming that supports our youth and one of the things we can definitely do is to try to work on mental health. One of the things that we’ve really dealt with this year is the increased number of mental health and social-emotional needs in our classroom, so that’s the job that I’ve asked Mr. Skerjanec to take on is to help be a part of that new journey, not to leave the new district, which I realize it’s frustrating, but I’m excited to see where we go. “
Taking over as principal for Ayres is Lance Olivas Sr. He has been in education for 24 years, 12 years as a science teacher and 12 years in an administrative role. Olivas has an associate’s degree in liberal arts from Aims Community College, a bachelor’s in chemistry and secondary education from the University of Northern Colorado and a master’s degree in administration supervision from the University of Phoenix.
He has been familiar with Sterling since his days as a student at Eaton High School. He also stayed here several times when he was in the military and spent quite a bit of time here when his daughter was in the nursing program at Northeastern Junior College. That’s why he wanted to come here.
“I definitely understand that change is hard, but I’m excited about this opportunity to come into this community and to Ayres,” he said, noting that he loves kids and has a passion for education. “I want to definitely work with the staff and the community and develop a very wonderful, great culture. I’m really a person that believes that the culture and inviting teachers and parents and community to be part of our school, to be part of our whole program, is a very important thing, so I’m just very excited for this opportunity.”
While he has spent most of his career working with high school students, several years ago he had the opportunity to work with younger students and fell in love with it. Prior to coming to RE-1, he served as dean of students at a middle school, then a principal and assistant principal at Union Colony Preparatory School, in Greeley, was superintendent/principal for Plainview School District and is currently working as an online director at a trade school, helping them to move from a program to an actual standalone school.
His time as principal at Union Colony has some parents asking questions though. Prompted by Adolf to share what he had shared with the interview committee, Olivas explained that while he was at the school there was a situation where a student’s grade had been changed and as building principal he took responsibility.
According to a Greeley Tribune article, Olivas, who went by the name Lance Mosness then and was also the boys basketball coach, was alleged to have changed player grades to keep them eligible for competition.
“I talked to the school board and it was definitely a very interesting time at that time. The school board did have a lot of hesitation; I think they were kind of backed into a corner, at which point they decided to go ahead and release me, but they did offer me a compensation package for my release after we talked about the situation,” Olivas said.
In regards to his name change, he explained that when his mother changed her name back to her maiden name, Olivas, he decided to change his name back to his birth name.
“I’d like to say this to the staff, not only at Ayres, but all of the staff there in the district, one of the things you’ll find out about me is I’m very open. I’m not a person who tries to hide anything or be deceiving, I’m pretty much a straightforward person and when I’m there I want to work with the staff and I’m looking forward to, as soon as I can, starting to me with staff and getting them involved, because I think it takes a whole team to run a school, it’s just not the principal. So, I want their ideas and their thoughts,” he said.
Olivas was asked by a parent who it was that changed the student’s grade at Union Colony. He said that was never disclosed to him, but he wishes he did know.
The community was also introduced to Brenda Kloberdanz, who will be the new principal at Campbell. Dennis Klein, the current principal, is taking on a new role in the district as partial assessment coordinator and gifted and talented coordinator, and will also help with some technology responsibilities.
Kloberdanz, a Sterling High School and NJC graduate, is finishing her 22nd year in education. After getting her bachelor’s degree in secondary science from UNC, she taught math and science for 14 years at St. Anthony’s Catholic School, in Sterling, and then special education at SHS for three years, while at the same time pursuing a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction and an endorsement in educational leadership. For the past five years, she has been principal at Yuma Middle School.
“I am really excited to meet the staff, students, parents at Campbell Elementary and I really look forward to being a part of the education in my own community,” Kloberdanz said.
Both she and Olivas were among 12 candidates interviewed; two that were supposed to be interviewed over Zoom were not due to time. Candidates were interviewed by a committee of 19, including building and district staff, as well as community members. The candidates were then scored and that information was given to the superintendent, and while some have said those scores were to be shared with the committee, the hiring committee has said they were never told that they would be able to see everyone’s scores.
Asked by an Ayres parent who said they would have wanted to be on that committee, Adolf explained that it was the same process used to hire Caliche’s new principal.
“What happened in our committee was everybody applied for both of the positions, except for two in-house candidates, so the same committee interviewed both candidates,” she said.
Adolf was also asked why the principal positions were switched, because originally Kloberdanz was hired for Ayres. She said there was a lot of “heartache” with Shannon Holloway, the current dean of students at Campbell, applying for the principal position there and not receiving it and Tuesday night, after talking with both candidates, she decided to make the switch.
“We need to give these individuals the best starting off point and I think that Brenda’s previous experience in the district, with Campbell having more grade levels to move in terms of improvement and staff being frustrated and upset, (I decided) we’re going to give that a go and honestly they applied for that same position, so we had that conversation this morning,” Adolf said.
Several parents were clearly upset about Skerjanec leaving Ayres. One noted she had never seen the position was posted and was concerned having heard a rumor that he had already left, especially after “we’ve had such a great year there.” Another parent added on, saying they were part of Ayres “when it wasn’t so good,” prior to Skerjanec coming on, and they are “deeply disheartened to see him go, because the building was doing so well.”
“I appreciate that feedback, I truly do, and I recognized that change is hard. We are excited to have Mr. Skerjanec move to a different position where he will have leadership responsibilities working and coaching kids in the district, rethinking how we do counseling. I am excited to have him involved, I’m sorry it’s disheartening to hear that, I have full confidence we’re going to move forward in a positive direction,” Adolf responded.
Another clearly frustrated parent rebuked that, accusing Adolf of discounting the opinions of community members.
“I am really tired of the whole change is hard. the reason change is hard is because it’s unnecessary, unwarranted and unasked for,” she said. “If he wasn’t wanting to move positions and he was happy where he was and he was doing a great job, why in the h*** would you move him and keep telling us that change is hard?”
Adolf responded saying she would be willing to talk offline, but legally could not talk about personnel online. That answer didn’t satisfy the parent, who said they didn’t need to hear specifics, just some general reason.
“Why would you move a great principal from a school where he is happy and everybody is happy with him, why would you move him? Because it’s your agenda and you don’t care what the community wants or what the community needs, it’s all Shila’s agenda and it’s all b*** and we’re all sick of Shila!” the parent said.
Asked about the hiring process for principals and if they have to reapply for their position every year, Adolf went over policy, noting the hiring of principals boils down to the superintendent and while oftentimes smaller committees are used; she chose to reach out further and use community members and students.
She also pointed out that policy states that “the superintendent shall develop and recommend policies and programs for personnel recruitment, selection and employment; employee relations; employee benefits and services; employee safety; personnel evaluation and salary administration for the school district.” Policy also says the superintendent is responsible to “ensure the maintenance of an adequate staff of properly trained administrative and supervisory personnel through the school district,” and to “recommend to the board the selection, employment, assignment, transfer and suspension of all personnel.”
“I bring up policy because I want you to know, our approach went well beyond what we’re required to do in policy and I think that might frustrate people like who was on and I didn’t get a chance, but I think 19 is a fairly large selection committee,” Adolf said.
A second grade teacher at Ayres who plans to leave at the end of the year shared that staff were able to hear from Skerjanec that he is leaving the school, but said it was “pretty disheartening” to hear during a community meeting who the new principal would be. The teacher said that communication is not the only reason, but a big reason why she’s leaving.
“I appreciate you telling me that and I apologize that, that happened today,” Adolf said, explaining that she didn’t know until Skerjanec sent her a text message before the meeting alerting her that staff had not received her email. “I’ll have to research why that didn’t happen and that’s really not an excuse. Everything was set to go, we did time the emails or scheduled them, because we weren’t sure exactly how we were doing things. People fueled that fire. I agree we’ll persevere. I’m really sorry that this happened to you, I just I really apologize, it was not my intent and communication can always be cleaned up, so I’ll take that feedback to heart and try to make it better.”