Megan Forman takes reins at Hylen Souders

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Dur­ing the Fri­day, June 29, Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing, board mem­bers approved a motion to hire Megan For­man as the Hylen Soud­ers Ele­men­tary School Prin­ci­pal, replac­ing Joe Jude, who left the dis­trict fol­low­ing three years to accept a posi­tion closer to his home.

Many newer res­i­dents may not know that For­man was born and grew up in the Big Wal­nut dis­trict; she grad­u­ated from Big Wal­nut High School in 1998, where she was a stand­out mem­ber of the girls var­sity soc­cer team.

For­man went on the play soc­cer for Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity and was a mem­ber of the Bat­tling Bish­ops’ women’s team that won the NCAA Divi­sion III National Cham­pi­onship in 2001. She grad­u­ated in from OWU 2002 with dual degrees in early child­hood edu­ca­tion and psychology.

While at OWU, For­man did mis­sion work in Mex­ico for a sum­mer, the fol­low­ing sum­mer she trav­elled to Japan to teach Eng­lish at the junior high level, and the sum­mer before her senior year she trav­eled to Europe with her OWU soc­cer team­mates and played against Euro­pean club teams – that was the sum­mer imme­di­ately before the Ohio Wes­leyan won the national championship.

After grad­u­a­tion from OWU For­man spent time in India in the Himalayas doing edu­ca­tional lead­er­ship and envi­ron­men­tal ethics teach­ing; and since then has done some sum­mer trekking in Thailand.

But Big Wal­nut is home to Megan For­man. The fall fol­low­ing grad­u­a­tion from OWU, For­man came on board at Big Wal­nut, teach­ing Kinder­garten at Big Wal­nut Ele­men­tary School, the ele­men­tary school she attended as a child. She then taught first grade for seven years, and when Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary School opened she taught third grade at GRE.

While teach­ing in the dis­trict For­man com­pleted grad­u­ate work at Ash­land Uni­ver­sity in edu­ca­tional lead­er­ship and pol­icy, with added credit hours for admin­is­tra­tive licen­sure – she has a dual license that allows her to be an admin­is­tra­tor at both the ele­men­tary and mid­dle school level.

Get­ting the Hylen Soud­ers principal’s posi­tion wasn’t a shoe-in — any­one famil­iar with the district’s hir­ing prac­tices knows that Big Wal­nut admin­is­tra­tors don’t just hand out posi­tions. There are mul­ti­ple steps teacher can­di­dates go through get­ting a job at Big Wal­nut, and that process is even more rig­or­ous for admin­is­tra­tor candidates.

“There was a panel of admin­is­tra­tors, plus build­ing reps, par­ents and teach­ers,” For­man explained. “That was fol­lowed by staff round robins, plus a follow-up round with (dis­trict super­in­ten­dent) Steve (Mazzi) and (assis­tant super­in­ten­dent) Gary (Bar­ber). It was rig­or­ous, but a great challenge.”

For­man agreed that part of her suc­cess at Big Wal­nut has been the men­tor­ship of GRE prin­ci­pal Peggy McMurry, who was the BWE prin­ci­pal when For­man started teach­ing in the dis­trict. When McMurry took the posi­tion as GRE prin­ci­pal, and respon­si­bil­ity for open­ing the new build­ing, For­man joined her team.

“It will be excit­ing tak­ing Peggy’s men­tor­ship to a new level,” For­man said. “She’s been great so far, both with pos­i­tive feed­back and con­struc­tive crit­i­cism. I look for­ward to work­ing with her in my new capacity.”

For­man said that Hylen Soud­ers Ele­men­tary has a strong team in place; she doesn’t see any need for sig­nif­i­cant changes as the 2012–13 school year begins.

One area For­man did say that she is inter­ested in explor­ing as prin­ci­pal is estab­lish­ing a pos­i­tive behav­ior sys­tem — get­ting all build­ing staff involved in com­mon behav­ioral expec­ta­tions in com­mon areas for all stu­dents at all grade levels.

“Becom­ing the Soud­ers prin­ci­pal is a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­nity to con­tinue serv­ing this com­mu­nity in a build­ing with a strong aca­d­e­mic tra­di­tion,” For­man said. “Three years of Excel­lent with Dis­tinc­tion on the state report card, and pre­lim­i­nary indi­ca­tions are that that tra­di­tion will con­tinue. I’m thrilled to be work­ing with a team that’s doing so many pos­i­tive things.

“I want to make cer­tain we have a strong con­nec­tion with the Big Wal­nut com­mu­nity as a whole; that we’re con­nect­ing with all stake­hold­ers,” For­man added. “We espe­cially want to strengthen the rela­tion­ships we have now. This is a great oppor­tu­nity to serve a great com­mu­nity. I’m really look­ing for­ward to it.”

Megan For­man is mar­ried to Jerry McCaulla; they are rais­ing three chil­dren, and are also an active Eagle Coun­try 4-H Club family.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jul 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.