Gulley hired as superintendent

Jay School Corporation has its new superintendent.
At a special meeting this morning, Jay School Board approved Jeremy Gulley as its new leader. Gulley has served as the corporation’s director of teacher effectiveness since 2012 and has spent most of his 20-year career in Jay County.
A reception to welcome Gulley to his new position is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Nov. 2 at John Jay Center for Learning.
“I’m tremendously excited about the opportunity to lead Jay Schools,” said Gulley, 43. “I began here 20 years ago and have given the better part of my professional life and my personal energy to educating kids in Jay County. So, for me, it’s working among the best people I could hope to work with. That is a really wonderful opportunity to do that in a place I’ve grown to love.”
He will take over Monday for Brad DeRome, who has been serving as interim superintendent since Tim Long’s departure in July. Long retired from the superintendent position and took a new job with Mount Vernon Community Schools.
The director of teacher effectiveness position will not be filled, resulting in savings of nearly $130,000.
“Jeremy just stood out to us and gave us the feeling of 'fasten your seatbelts,' because we're going to move Jay Schools into the future,” said school board president Kristi Betts while complimenting his success in pursuing manufacturing, technology and other initiatives over the last few years. She also expressed thanks to everyone in the administration who stepped in to fill roles over the last three months.
Gulley pointed to Jay School Corporation’s state and national recognition, including National Blue Ribbon awards for both Bloomfield and East elementary schools, and said he hopes to continue that success for the next generation of students.
In order to do so, he’s focusing on four goals:
•Ensuring that every child finds success.
•Attracting the best people to work in Jay Schools.
•Keeping Jay Schools safe and secure.
•Making parents and the community proud to support Jay Schools.
He also acknowledged the corporation’s need to find new strategies to deal with declining enrollment, which has dropped by more than 400 students since 2005.
“Our biggest challenge is to ensure that we’ve used our resources wisely to be able to preserve the achievement of those goals,” Gulley said. “We are not unique in rural Indiana to see declining enrollment. We may have to think anew. And when a new superintendent comes, there’s opportunity to see things from a new perspective.”
He was one of three candidates interviewed for the position along with DeRome and Trent Paxson, Jay Schools’ director of testing and assessment. DeRome later removed his name from consideration in favor of returning to the role of business manager/treasurer, which he has held since 1999. Both DeRome and Violet Current, who had served as treasurer in place of DeRome, resigned their positions today and were then re-hired as business manager and deputy treasurer respectively.
The trio will continue to work well together, said Gulley, because all three are striving toward the same goal.
“Our administrative team has never been closer,” he added while complimenting the job DeRome has done in the interim role. “It’s been a good transition and a good process. And I think all three of us have grown closer through it.
“To a person, the motivating factor for all of us is what is best for Jay Schools and Jay County.”
The new superintendent’s first-year salary will be $115,000, which is $5,048 less than Long made in his final year with the corporation. The total annual financial package, including insurance and other benefits, on the four-year contract comes in at $152,281.
Gulley is a 1991 graduate of Blackford High School who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from Ball State University. He continued his education at BSU, earning a master’s degrees political science and education administration.
He was hired as an American and U.S. history teacher at Jay County High School in 1996 and also taught history at West Jay Middle School for three years. He was the assistant principal at East Jay Middle School for two years, dean of students at JCHS for four years and then principal at the high school for the 2007-08 school year before departing to become principal at Huntington North.
He returned to Jay Schools as high school RISE coordinator in 2012, and that position morphed into director of teacher effectiveness after the evaluation system was implemented.
Gulley has also served for 26 years in the Army National Guard and holds the rank of lieutenant colonel.