13
become, Kuffel said.
“My dad was an avid reader and he had a great
work ethic. For me, there’s no disconnect between
my personal and professional life,” he said.
Other educational influences included Principal
Steve Hutton at Tremont, where Kuffel began his
teaching career, and Dr. Brock Butts, a
superintendent and a past-president of IASA.
“Steve Hutton was ahead of his time when it
came to professional development and building
capacity in educators,” Kuffel said. “He also taught
me how to deal with strife. He used to say ‘the dogs
keep barking, but the caravan moves on.’ I come
back to that today with all that goes on in the social
media and calls for reform in public education.”
From Butts, Kuffel said he learned about
managing school finance and providing stability for
programs.
When he looks ahead, Kuffel sees rugged terrain
for public education, especially when it comes to
outside expectations and demands.
“Schools don’t fear accountability, but it’s difficult
to be accountable to everyone when they sometimes
have different agendas,” Kuffel said. “Are we
supposed to be accountable to Springfield? To
business leaders? To parents?
“To me, it should be about the students, and I still
have a strong sense of
in loco parentis,
standing in
the stead of parents. It is a profound responsibility to
be in charge of someone’s child during the school
day, and those pressures have grown during the past
30 years. Now it’s not only teaching, but feeding,
cleaning, loving and teaching character and other
things that used to be done at home.”
Kuffel said he has the utmost respect for
educators who continue to press on despite fewer
resources and more demands -- teachers and
administrators who soldier on while the “barking” gets
louder. He said as president of IASA, he is committed
to the association’s vision “Maximum Educational
Success for All Students.”
“Unquestionably the greatest accomplishments
we can make to bring that vision and mission to
reality is at the level of our own Local Education
Authority (LEA). The questions we ask, the stands
we take for children, the way we communicate with
our parents and public, grow exponentially in power
when a common message is carried across our
state,” Kuffel said. “Why should we not expect the
citizenry of our state to see us as the ones who
‘Stand for Children’ or who ‘Advance Illinois’? “
(Continued from page 12)
Kuffel to Ravitch: ‘I am no hero’
In the fall of 2013,
a letter written by
Geneseo
Superintendent Scott
Kuffel caught the eye
of national education
blogger
and
outspoken defender of public education Diane
Ravitch. Kuffel had written a letter in opposition to
the state changing the cut scores for the ISAT test
and Ravitch added Kuffel to her honor roll in a blog
entry titled “A Hero Superintendent in Illinois.”
Wrote Ravitch: “…Superintendent Kuffel joins
our honor roll because he fearlessly blasted this
callous indifference to the students and teachers. It
is great when leaders show leadership.”
A few days later, Kuffel wrote Ravitch to say “...I
am no hero. I’m a superintendent of a public, PK-12
school district in rural Illinois. The hero is the
principal who comes in early on a Sunday morning
to replace sod on the football field where vandals
damaged the turf before graduation. The hero is the
school nurse who makes the difficult call home to
parents and tends to a scarcely seen scratch on a
kindergartner’s arm. The hero is the AP US History
teacher who holds study sessions at 8 p.m. at night
after kids are finished with their practices. The hero
is the art teacher who spends her own money for
supplies and materials because she knows the
budget is dwindling, but the need for the arts is more
important than ever. The heroes are the parents who
sacrifice time for fundraising and make meals for
another parent who just tragically lost a child. The
heroes are school board members who take the
criticism and complaints for hiring, for spending, for
firing, for taking ‘hard lines’ in difficult times.
“The heroes are those who try. They try every
day for their ‘littles’ who come with scant learning
experiences or understanding of manners. They try
for the businesses and realtors in town who pressure
for high quality schools because that drives local
economies and housing. They try because they
believe that what happens today has impacts on
tomorrow that we’re never really sure we’ll see.
“And those are the heroes in whom I believe.
They are the heroes who keep me coming to work
every day. They’ve kept me coming to District 228
for 11 years, and I know they’ll keep me coming for a
few more.”
New IASA president … (continued) _______________________
