BELLVILLE — Logan Slavinski is a Colt once again.
The Clear Fork Valley Local school board voted 4-1 during a special meeting Monday to appoint Slavinski as the new middle school principal for the 2024-2025 school year.
“It’s something I’ve been working towards for a long time, to be able to come home and serve my community,” said Slavinski, a 2011 graduate of Clear Fork High School.
Slavinski is the assistant principal at Mansfield Middle School, where he began his career teaching social studies and math. His administrative experience also includes stints as the assistant principal of Upper Sandusky High School and Mansfield Middle School’s dean of students.
The board also voted 5-0 to offer the position of high school principal to Jennifer Klaus, the principal at Clear Fork Middle School. Klaus will replace Brian Brown, who is retiring at the end of the school year.
Both Slavinksi and Klaus were awarded three-year administrative contracts that begin on Aug. 1.
Klaus has worked as the district’s middle school principal since 2014. She also described the transition to her new role as a homecoming of sorts.
“I started my career at Clear Fork High School as the family consumer science teacher,” she said. “So for me, it was exciting to get the opportunity to go back to the building that I started my career in as a teacher.”
Both administrators said they don’t have specific agendas for their new roles, but want to get to know their colleagues and their priorities.
“My goal coming into the position is to unify the staff on some directives and goals together,” Klaus said. “One of the things I want them to do is to weigh in on what’s important to them in their classrooms and then work towards establishing those things that support them.
“I know they’ve been doing a lot with scheduling,” she added. “I want to hear their thoughts and their concerns on scheduling and hopefully we’ll get going on some of that stuff for the following year.”
Slavinski said he wants to work with Klaus and assistant middle school principal Randy Pore to find out what’s already working well in the building.
“I don’t want to rock the boat so to speak. I want to continue facilitating the things that have been working well and also bring in a new energy,” he explained.
“I’m very familiar with a large number of staff from my background here in the community.
“Creating those positive working relationships and making sure that we’re always student first in our thought process and the decision making — those are going to be the top priorities for me.”
Klaus said she hopes to hear from the community as well.
“I want them to know that I have an open-door policy,” she said. “If they have any concerns, they can call me they can email me. I want to be here for them.”
Klaus, Slavinski applied for high school principal job
Both Klaus and Slavinski applied for the high school principal position. The board, acting on the recommendation of interim Supt. John Thomas, voted to hire Slavinski as Klaus’ replacement without posting the middle school principal job.
Thomas said he spoke with teachers and classified staff on the interview teams, as well as the four administrators at the middle and high school, while considering the candidates.
He said his recommendations ultimately came down to who had the most experience.
“That’s clearly Jennifer (Klaus). She’s been in that middle school job for 12 years,” he said.
Thomas called Slavinski a “very impressive” candidate, but noted that most of his experience is at the middle school level. Slavinski said he was just as excited, if not more, to accept the middle school role.
“The majority of my experience in education has been at the middle school level,” he said. “I feel very attuned with middle-school age students.”
He said his favorite thing about middle schoolers is building relationships with them.
“That’s really the best part about it,” he said. “Meeting them where they’re at, watching them grow and flourish and take off as they start to develop and find themselves as an individual.”
Why one board member voted ‘no’
Board member Terry McDermott cast the sole vote against offering Slavinski the job. He said he voted ‘no’ because he believed the middle school job should have been posted.
McDermott spoke out against the district’s decision to hire an administrator without posting the job prior to running for school board. He said that voting yes to approve an administrative hire that wasn’t posted would go against the transparency he promised voters.
“I understand why Mr. Thomas did what he did,” he said. “But if I was to vote ‘yes’ for Logan, I would be going back on what I was saying over the summer.
“It wasn’t a vote against Logan, it was a vote against the process,” he added. “I find (Slavinski) to be a standup gentleman. I’d like to congratulate him. I know he will do a good job.”
Thomas said he felt posting the middle school principal job would only yield the same pool of applicants and ultimately the same result.
“The applicant list wasn’t going to change. If we posted it again, it’d probably be the same people,” he said.
“We had the two strongest candidates. All the interview teams wanted to keep both candidates. So instead of doing either/or, we were all looking for both/and.”
Thomas added he checked with the board’s attorney and was advised that there were no legal issues hiring Slavinski without posting the position, since he had already applied for a principal’s position with the district.
“I’m really happy with this team that we have now,” Thomas said. “We have a very strong administrative team.”
Who else applied for the high school principal job?
Other candidates for the position of high school principal were:
Andrew Buck, an education research scientist at The Ohio State University. Buck has a masters in educational policy and leadership and PhD in educational policy from the Ohio State University. He also applied for Clear Fork’s interim superintendent position.
Benjamin Hopkins, a special education teacher with Marion City Schools Taft Elementary. Hopkins has served as an intervention specialist at every grade level during his 20-year career, according to his letter of interest.
Jason Knight, the middle and high school principal at Crestline Exempted Village Schools. He has a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Administration from North Central University.
Jennifer Moore, principal of Buckeye Central Middle School. Moore previously worked as the high school life sciences teacher at Lexington High School. From 2008 to 2021, she was the life sciences teacher at Clear Fork High School.
Doug Potts, a technology instructor at Mansfield City Schools. Potts has worked in education since 1987, serving as a special needs educator, administrator and coach. He also applied for Clear Fork’s interim superintendent position.
Jessica Shaffner, the third and fourth grade principal at Mansfield’s Malabar Intermediate School. Shaffner previously served as Mansfield’s assistant middle school principal. From 2005 to 2018, she worked for Madison Local Schools as a middle and high school science teacher.
Amanda Young, a registered nurse who said she is finishing her principal licensure program in the fall. Young has worked as a health tech instructor at the Ashland County West Holmes Career Centers since 2014, according to her resume.
