Leer en Español, traducido por El Vocero Hispano
Godwin Heights — There were fist bumps, high-fives, words of encouragement — even some help with tying shoes. Chad Conklin’s excitement about being at West Godwin Elementary for the first day of school was unmistakable.
Having started his career in elementary education, Conklin spent the past 16 years at Godwin Heights in secondary roles: as a principal, athletic director and a coach. Now he is looking forward to being, as he said, “in the hallway, seeing the arrival, the dismissal, being in the cafeteria, going into the classroom and maybe reading some books to students.”
As new superintendent, Conklin will have the chance to do all that and more.
Conklin walked the 220 steps or so from the high school, where he was most recently principal, to the administration building this summer, taking over the superintendent position from Bill Fetterhoff, who retired in June.
“Bill has been a phenomenal leader,” Chad said of his predecessor. “He has been a phenomenal mentor to me and he supported me as a high-school principal, as an athletic director, as a basketball coach. He’s always been in my corner, and I knew when he was ready to retire, I wanted to be ready to help continue to build on the legacy that he’s left here at Godwin Heights, and be the next superintendent here.”
First-Year Teacher to Supportive Leader
Conklin started his education career as a student teacher at North Godwin, in the same district his mother, Mary Ann Conklin, started her teaching career. Mary Ann died in 2013.
“That experience really shaped me,” he said. “You go to college for a bachelor’s in elementary education, but you really don’t know what it means to be a teacher until you have the opportunity to step foot in the classroom for the very first time and to have educators such as Deb (Born) and Pat (Brower) to provide me with the opportunity. They really set me up for success in this district.”
‘I want Godwin Heights to be a place … where they feel supported, a place where they feel like they can grow.’
Superintendent Chad Conklin
Conklin also was struck by the diversity of the district, he said, noting that at the time there were eight different languages spoken in his classroom.
“I loved it,” he said. “I loved the environment.”
He graduated from Central Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, and his first teaching position was at Morley Stanwood Community Schools. Conklin was only there for six months when he got a call asking if he was interested in a fourth-grade class at North Godwin for the 2000-01 school year.
Of that first year of teaching, Conklin said he remembered struggling a lot, and learning to focus and be reflective on each day so he could “be better tomorrow.”
“It gave me the empathy of what teachers go through in the classroom on a day-to-day basis, because I know that I made a lot of mistakes in my first year as a teacher, and I had to learn from those to get better,” he recalled.
It’s a value he’s carried throughout his career, and as superintendent, he sees one of his most important roles as ensuring that every administrator, teacher and staff member has the opportunity to grow professionally and pursue their individual goals, he said.
“Whether it’s a teacher aspiring to lead, or a paraprofessional hoping to become a classroom teacher, we want to provide the mentorship, development and support they need to get there. We want them to go home at the end of the day thinking, ‘There’s so much support here at Godwin Heights, and they’re helping me reach my professional goals.’
“When that happens, it naturally encourages them to invest even more back into our students.”
From Coach to Leader: A Defining Decision
Becoming superintendent or even a principal was not something to which Conklin aspired.
“I wanted to be a teacher, and I wanted to be a basketball coach and I wanted to win a state championship,” he said. “Those were the three things that I wanted to do.”
After nine years of teaching, Conklin was offered the role of athletic director while still coaching basketball. In the back of his mind, he kept hearing his mother’s voice: “You’d be an amazing administrator,” he recalled. That encouragement is what ultimately pushed him to take the leap to administration.
With a winning basketball team on the brink of taking a state title in the 2014-15 school year, Conklin was asked to be the high-school principal while still serving as the basketball coach, but he knew he had to make a choice.
His son had been injured in a lawnmower accident in the summer of 2014, and he needed to be a dad, he said, adding he also knew that to be the high-school principal, he had to be 100% in that role to help students and staff.
“I couldn’t spend time trying to be a principal and a basketball coach at the same time, as well as be able to support my son through this injury,” Conklin said. “(This) made the decision for me, and that really kind of changed my whole trajectory of my career in education.”
Godwin Heights would bring home the state title in 2015 and Conklin was there to celebrate as the principal, he said.
A New Chapter Built on Growth
When Conklin took over as principal, the high school was initially on a priority list of the Michigan Department of Education due to low performance, at risk of being closed by state school reform officials.
He said his goals shifted when presented with that challenge and the opportunity to work with the staff and students to rebuild the program, improve the educational opportunities and raise student achievement. Through focused efforts, the high school had made by the 2020-21 school year significant progress and was recognized as a reward school by the department.
“The state championship came by the hard work of the staff and students, of what they did to get that school off the priority school status and moved to reward school,” he said.” That was my state championship.”
With that achievement, Conklin set his sights on the next step in his career — pursuing a superintendent role, with a particular focus on becoming the next superintendent of Godwin Heights.
His current goals are “pretty simple,” he said. The first: getting the school year off to a strong start. The next: passing a request in the fall to fund district building renovations.
“Right now, no major changes are on the horizon,” Conklin said. “I’m just taking the time to listen and learn, and talk to staff.
“The biggest goal that I have always had is, I want Godwin Heights to be a place where the staff and the students look forward to coming to school or to work every single day. A place where they feel supported, a place where they feel like they can grow.”
Read more from Godwin Heights:
• Young authors shine as library branch publishes classroom books
• Expanded dual enrollment boosts students’ early college credits
