News : VS Board to act on new principal during Friday meeting

Exactly one month after meeting to "reluctantly" accept the resignation of High School Principal Kirk Johnson, the Vinton-Shellsburg School Board will meet to hire his replacement.

The board is expected to give its official approval to hiring Matt Kingsbury, who is currently the principal at Durant High School.

The board will meet at 7:30 a.m. Friday, April 1. They accepted Johnson's resignation on March 1.

V-S Superintendent Mary Jo Hainstock said more than 40 people applied for the positoion.

"Of the 40, about half of them had prior administrative experience," said Hainstock. "We did phone interviews on about 10 of them. Based on the phone interviews, we did reference checks on about eight. Four individuals ended up interviewing with us."

The four, including Kingsbury, had a "full day" including interviews with students, parents/community, staff, administrators and Hainstock. They had tours of the high school with Johnson and a tour of the community with Ryan Davis.

"After each group concluded their fourth interview, I met with them and listened to their overall impressions of each candidate and whether they thought he/she would be successful at the high school," said Hainstock. " Our administrative team met that evening, along with Jim Struve, to determine the next step. We did a site visit to Durant on Thursday and found that Matt Kingsbury’s answers during the interview process aligned with the responses we heard from students, staff and administrators at Durant."

Hainstock listed several areas in which Kingsbury impressed the Vinton-Shellsburg interviewers:

1. Mr. Kingsbury has a record of being successful in increasing student achievement. He collects data about student achievement and other indicators and then uses the data to drive school improvement initiatives. In the process, he came across and genuine, energetic, and focused on students’ and their learning.

2. He and his wife are excited about moving to the area and enrolling two of their three students in our district (the youngest will have to wait a year).

3. The Durant district has received media attention over the last few days about his predecessor and litigation with the school board. Through our research, all reported that he has maintained the utmost level of professionalism and maintained the high school’s attention on the students and their learning. See that story HERE).

4. Our administrative team is looking forward to the talents and expertise he will bring to the district as we work to take our district to the next level.