Vaughn picked by Fort

FORT RECOVERY — Fort Recovery Schools’ next superintendent says she wants to make sure the district is continually improving.
The Fort Recovery School Board selected Shelly Vaughn, who is currently serving as elementary school principal, as the district’s next superintendent on Wednesday.
“It’s an honor,” she said of being chosen from among 21 candidates who applied. “Being a part of this district has allowed me to grow professionally and learn and lot and I love it here.”
The board offered her the position this week and will take official action on a contract at its regular meeting Tuesday night.
She will replace Pat Niekamp, who served as superintendent for more than 10 years until his retirement 2003, but took on the job again in 2009 in an interim role until the district could find a permanent replacement.
Vaughn said her goal for leading Fort Recovery Schools is to continue improving the district with the support of the community.
“I said in my interview that we should be at the forefront of everything we do,” she said.
“You’re never finished growing and learning and being innovative. Having the strong community support that we have here, it allows us to focus on being innovative and trying new things.”
Vaughn plans to utilize that community support with plans on what to do about the high school after voters in November rejected a plan to build a new high school addition to the combined elementary and middle school building.
“I think it can be tackled the way the board has continued to tackle it and that is collect as much input and support from the community as we can get, trying to arrive at a decision the most people will support,” she said. “And I think the board here has done a really great job (of that).”
Vaughn’s educational roots begin in Jay County. She was a 1991 graduate of Jay County High School and attended Ball State to receive her undergraduate degree in education. She came back to the Jay County and taught special education at Judge Haynes Elementary School in Portland for four years.
In 1999 she moved to Fort Recovery Elementary School where she taught first and fourth grade until being selected as elementary school principal in 2006.
She received her master’s of education degree from Wright State University in 2003 and received her superintendent certification in 2010 from Bowling Green State University.
Niekamp said he thinks Vaughn will be able to continue an upward trend for the district.
“I think she’s going to be a great young administrator to step into this role,” he said. “She’s got a lot of really solid background in school improvement.”
When Vaughn came to Fort Recovery Schools in 1999, Niekamp was serving as superintendent and said he used to hear from then elementary principal Nancy Knapke about the positive effect Vaughn had on others she came into contact with.
Vaughn said Knapke was a mentor to her and when she took over for her Knapke in the principals’ role, people told her she had “big shoes to fill” in that role.
Now she’ll be stepping up again, this time into Niekamp’s shoes, an administrator she highly regards.
“I always envisioned myself working with Pat in a leadership role,” she said. “His coming back was an exciting time for me personally because I know he has a wealth of experience.
“I told him from the get go, ‘I’m going to pick your brain like crazy,’” she said. “I’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to work with him. And people trust Pat and he’s had a long career to build really good relationships with people.”
Niekamp said his professional advice to Vaughn is to never accept the status quo and to keep working to make the schools better. And on a personal level, he advised to just keep track of the balance in life between work and personal life.
“She’s got a lot of enthusiasm, she’s got that spark about her,” Niekamp said. “I know a lot of people were anxious to see how it works out and I think it will work out great.”[[In-content Ad]]