Filling the bill: Trustees pleased with new school superintendent

When Seymour Community Schools trustees embarked on a search this year to find the corporation's next superintendent, they knew exactly what they wanted.

Someone who will "put children first, embrace learning, collaborate with partners in the community, be fiscally responsible and enforce discipline."

Those were just a few of the many qualities and characteristics trustees said they were looking for.

They believe they found them in Teran Armstrong.

Trustees voted to hire Armstrong, the assistant superintendent for
Zionsville Community Schools, at a special school board meeting last week at Seymour Middle School. She will take over as superintendent in Seymour this summer when Robert Schmielau retires after serving the schools for the past seven years. It will be her first job as superintendent.

The vote was unanimous.

"When we started this search, we joked that we wanted somebody who could walk on water," Trustee Tim Toborg said. "We got close."

After the meeting, educators and others welcomed Armstrong to the community during a public reception.

Although he is proud to have been a part of the selection process, Toborg said he is glad it's over, and that the corporation can focus on moving forward. He spoke highly of Armstrong's experience and personality.

"She's very warm and personable," Toborg said. "She can relate to everybody, and I think she will bring a lot of unity to the corporation and community. She knows kids and teachers and has the toughness of a National Guard colonel."

Toborg wasn't speaking in jest.

Armstrong served in the Indiana Army National Guard, attaining the rank of colonel. She was deployed to Bosnia in 2004 and to Mississippi in support of Hurricane Katrina relief in 2005.

"I had quite a career that spanned from washing pots and pans to meeting the president of the United States," she said.
Armstrong first learned about Seymour from fellow retired National Guardsman Mike Jordan, who serves as president of the Seymour Common Council.

"My very good friend Mr. (Michael) Jordan who I served in the military with always raved about Seymour," she said. "I always said if I ever had the opportunity to live there I would snap at it, and now I have that opportunity."

Jordan said he is glad he could be a part of Armstrong's decision.

"I think she's going to be a good fit for our school system and our community," Jordan said. "She is a good soldier, very structured, well organized, a people person and politically very solid. The fact that she rose to the rank of colonel speaks volumes of her character."

Armstrong has been an educator in Lafayette, Delphi, Anderson and Zionsville, working at all levels of education, from preschool to college and administration. She has spent the past five years as the assistant superintendent in Zionsville.

Scott Robison, superintendent at Zionsville, said he hates to see Armstrong leave but knows she will do great things in Seymour.

"I've worked with Dr. Armstrong for the past two years," Robison said. "She has brought to Zionsville Community Schools a well-rounded perspective from her prior experiences."

Robison went on to list several qualities he and the Zionsville corporation have valued in Armstrong.

"She's a quick study and has a bias for action," he said. "She sizes up people and is an academic intellectual - a real student of current research in academics. She has done fabulous work here and has been an invaluable resource to our community.

"Teran is a well respected and articulate leader," he added. "I'm pleased for Seymour but sad for us. It will be great to have her as a colleague in that position and I'm sure our paths will cross again in the future. Seymour got a really good deal with her."

During the interview process, Armstrong said she paid brief visits to each Seymour school and was impressed with what she saw. Now she's ready to get to work.

After wrapping up her job in Zionsville and moving to Seymour in the next few months, Armstrong said she will hit the ground running by spending time at all of the schools and meeting with faculty and staff. She spent Tuesday at Seymour-Redding Elementary School.

"I want to meet with teachers and get to know the people in the community," she said. "Seymour has strong principals. I value their leadership and knowledge and really just want to sit down and pick their brains to find out what it is they need."

She also said she will begin to make contacts with businesses and those in the community who support Seymour schools.

"I will need to meet with leaders and learn how the school system works with businesses and partners in the community," she said. "Dr. Schmielau has done a wonderful job of making and building those relationships. I don't want to lose any ground because there are a lot of good things going on here."

As for the challenges and changes Seymour schools face in the future, Armstrong said she is ready for them.

"I'm not afraid of change, and Seymour faces the same challenges that face every school corporation in the state when it comes to funding and the tax situation," she said. "But what Seymour has is an open mind, and in that kind of environment, we can make major strides in these times of uncertainties."

After meeting and getting acquainted with the community, Armstrong says the first item on her list is to prioritize goals, but she said she knows much has already been done.

"I'm coming in with a fresh look and new ideas, which I think is good for any school corporation, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel here," she said. "The principals and teachers here know these schools, and I'm looking forward to being part of that and helping bring in the resources they need."

One early goal for Armstrong is to help at-risk students.

"What I'd like to investigate is how we reach out to the difficult students who feel like they're disenfranchised," she said. "I came from a very, very poor background myself."

When it comes to test scores, Armstrong said they are important, but that they do not define a student's ability or potential.

"I tell parents that ISTEP scores are numbers, they aren't their children," she said. "We need to focus on how we can help our teachers and students and success will come."

On improving graduation rates, Armstrong said it's not about how much money a corporation has or spends.

"It's not always a case of spending more money," she said. "We need to be doing business differently to prepare students to be citizens of the world and future citizens of Seymour."

School board President Martha McIntire said she was impressed with Armstrong since the beginning of the search.

"She has a way of connecting with people and a great love of children," she said. "She is a very hands-on person."

McIntire related a story she had been told that Armstrong, to understand and appreciate school bus drivers, went out and obtained her commercial driver's license and drove buses on field trips.

Her knowledge of grants and other new ideas were also impressive, McIntire said.

"She really fit the profile of what we and the community were looking for," McIntire said. "Other candidates were good, but she just stood out."

Trustees Stu Silver and Max Klosterman agreed.

"She has a lot of good qualities and a good understanding of the issues," Silver said. "We're fortunate to get her, because we feel that we got the best."

"You would never know she wasn't a superintendent," Klosterman added.

Trustee Carl Vondielingen said he was impressed by Armstrong's knowledge of education issues.

"What impressed me was her wide scope of education," he said. "She is well versed in special education curriculum and she has a military background. She has a great sense of diversity she can bring to our schools and to our community."

"She's a good fit," Vondielingen added. "Of the list that we had of qualities we were looking for in a new superintendent, she fit about 90 to 95 percent of them. She has a lot of good ideas and we want to support her all we can."