by Nathan Boddy
It was a busy week for the Hamilton School District 3 trustees as they moved into the final selection phase of a new district superintendent. The board began their search for a new superintendent following the departure of Tom Korst, who left the job at the end of October. On both Monday and Wednesday evenings last week, the board hosted community meet-and-greets with the pool of candidates before moving on to interviews.
Following the last superintendent interview on Wednesday, the board held a closed session meeting to review background checks of the candidates before reconvening in order to discuss and cast their final votes. That final deliberation session lasted less than seven minutes as all board members cast their votes in favor of hiring Dave Thennis, the current superintendent of the Stevensville Public Schools.
During his interview, Thennis was asked questions ranging from his view on the budgetary process for public schools, his views on bond and levy requests, to his philosophy of leadership and more. His responses returned time and again to the importance of thorough communication and collaboration both within the school system, and into the community beyond.
Thennis began by introducing himself to the board and the public by admitting that education had not been at the forefront of his early life plans.
“Education was an accident for me,” he said. “I went to college in Washington and got a degree in chemistry and biology, and I wanted to be a scientist. I had aspirations of working in a lab. What I loved about science was finding connections and relationships between things, and I loved solving problems.”
Thennis recounted how a short-term coaching job turned into a long-term substitute teacher job, and how that exposure to education revealed itself as a satisfying avenue for impacting other’s lives by serving as a positive influence.
“The power of influence is incredible,” he told the board members, “and when people see things in you that
you didn’t necessarily see in yourself, it’s pretty powerful. And that’s what our teachers do. That’s what our administrators do. That’s what our parents do. They do that all day every day for kids, and I want to be a part of that.”
Thennis told the board that he believes the most important part of creating a budget for a district comes down to understanding the nuances of what creates revenue for a district and being ready to connect them to opportunities when they arise. He also expressed the importance of partnerships between the players in the district.
“I believe a strong relationship with the district clerk is key to this process. They are the financial expert in the district, but the superintendent is supposed to be the educational expert,” he said, adding that the superintendent’s job requires listening to the “folks in the buildings” and understanding the day-to-day operations.
The Hamilton School District attempted, and failed, to pass a bond and levy for a new middle school and updates to the high school in early 2023. Understandably, the trustees had this failure on their minds when they asked Thennis his thoughts on the bond/ levy process.
“Failure indicates that there’s a mutual misunderstanding between the school district and the community, and so when people are confused or it’s unclear, they’re definitely not going to support a bond,” he said. He recounted having been part of both a failed bond attempt, and a successful one while working in administration in Helena, and indicated that communication with the community was paramount for success. Such a success, he said, would be built on a “strong planning phase, lots of listening sessions, (prioritization), talking to various stakeholder groups and finding what was common among all of those stakeholders and then putting together a visual representation of what the projects needed to be.” He also pointed out the critical role of educators in the process since, invariably, they are the first to be approached by community members when questions about bonds/levies arise.
When asked what he thought the most important job of a superintendent is, Thennis replied that it is to be the “lead learner in the school district.” He explained that the role includes staying current with trends in education, and sharing/ interacting about that information with staff and the community.
“The superintendent is the steward of the resources and makes suggestions to the board about how we should prioritize the resources that we have. Whether those are human resources, facility resources, whatever it may be. It’s getting those priorities lined up. But I think the superintendent is the chief learner on campus.”
Thennis will officially begin on July 1st.
