Leadership Matters June 2014

New IASA president … (continued) _______________________

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Geneseo High School would receive some kind of college exposure by the time they graduated. “We have gone from maybe two Advanced Placement (AP) classes to 15 AP classes, we now have a dual enrollment program with Black Hawk Community College, and we have added a new vocational class to that program,” Ford said. “I would say that more than 90 percent of our students now graduate high school with at least one college credit.” Jill DePauw is a sixth grade social studies teacher who was on the Geneseo interview team that selected Kuffel to become superintendent in 2003. She also is president of the teachers’ union at Geneseo, where they just negotiated a new contract. She marvels at his energy and creativity. “I wonder if he ever gets any sleep because it just seems like he is always coming up with innovative

Superintendent Scott Kuffel goes along for the ride as his son and Senior Class President Judson Kuffel leads the Geneseo class of 2008 one last time in performing the “roller coaster” during the graduation ceremony.

ideas,” DePauw said, noting a leadership model they implemented whereby teams of teachers are co-led by a teacher and an administrator. “We work on building issues, professional development, curriculum, and our latest team, the A3 Team (Athletics, Arts and Activities) develops policies related to those three key areas of student involvement. Scott is truly a supporter of the Geneseo Maple Leafs in all aspects of a child’s learning.” IASA Executive Director Dr. Brent Clark said Kuffel’s experience and his willingness to stand up for what’s best when it comes to educating children should serve him well in providing solid leadership for IASA, which is one of the nation’s largest statewide associations for school administrators with more than 1,700 members. “Scott Kuffel has been on the IASA Board of Directors for more than seven years. He is a respected educator and leader who is committed to providing the best possible educational opportunities in public schools,” Clark said. “These are very difficult times and I believe Scott can help us continue to move forward despite all of the challenges facing public education.” Kuffel was a biology major and on a pre-med, pre-dental track at Illinois Wesleyan when he worked at a summer school and a basketball camp between

his junior and senior years. It became a defining moment in him choosing education as a career path. “I never really had a sense of students who struggled until that summer when I worked with elementary-aged kids who were in the Title 1 remedial program,” Kuffel recalled. “It struck me that there were so many different reasons that these kids were struggling academically and I knew I had some calling to that type of service.” As a junior at Kewanee High School, Kuffel also spent a year as a foreign exchange student in Kenya, where the oldest son in the family he lived with was a headmaster at a Kenyan school. Kuffel’s father was a veterinarian, but the family bloodlines include a teacher and educational activist. His father’s cousin, Jim Bergagna, was a pioneer in special education in the early 1960s. “We called him ‘Uncle Jim’ and he helped establish the first special education cooperative in the northwest part of the state and was in on the ground floor of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act),” Kuffel said. The Freeport school district in 2009 dedicated a building with Bergagna’s name. Family, especially his parents, molded him into the type of person – and superintendent – he has

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