At the end of this school year, Randy WiIlis, longtime South Lebanon Elementary Principal, will be retiring and Dave Winebrenner, current Junior High Assistant Principal, will replace him. Brent Allen, Junior High Science teacher, will replace Winebrenner at the Junior High.

Earlier this school year, Kings Acting Superintendent Tim Spinner, who is officially the district’s Assistant Superintendent, stepped up to replace Jon Lazares, who had stepped in temporarily to replace Valerie Browning, who left Kings at the end of last school year. Spinner later announced his temporary replacement at the assistant superintendent post, Larry Knapp.

The Kings school board is currently looking for a permanent superintendent. Meanwhile, Kings High School’s new principal, Doug Leist, is approaching the end of his first year at Kings, having replaced Doug Mader, who left Kings for Sycamore.

This week, Kings Athletic Director Phil Poggi announced he also will be leaving Kings for Sycamore …

Are you following so far? 

Starting last year and with seemingly no end in sight, the administrative shuffle at Kings Local Schools could be confusing — and even a little scary — for some, as the growing district remains in a state of flux.

And these concerns are not lost on the district’s top decision-makers.

Veteran school board member Bonnie Baker-Hicks said the amount of change at the top does concern her, especially with all the years of experience the departing administrators held.

“I worry we won’t be able to cover as well as we have in the past because of the mass amount of lost workers,” she said. “Will the new employees be able to learn our ways, or will they want to make a lot of changes is what concerns me.”

Baker-Hicks said such changes will ultimately affect students and teachers — but not necessarily in a bad way.

“We’ll all work extra hard to make sure things run smoothly and anytime you get someone new there will be apprehension for all employees but everyone will make it through this transition.”

Veteran teachers are also aware of the change, and are trying to adapt.

Longtime KHS social studies teacher, Dustin Goldie, said that no matter how much change Kings may go through, the teachers and administration will look after kids.

“I think anytime there is change in a school, the number one priority has to focus on the students,” Goldie said.“ We have to make sure the students have no idea that change even occurred.  Kids are very adaptive to change and usually handle it very well.   Change is always going to happen in life, its a great life lesson that we all go through at some point.