Strot hired as principal for Lind Schools

Current Lind-Ritzville High School business teacher Guy Strot has been hired to take the helm as the Lind School District principal for the upcoming 2013-2014 school year. Strot has resided in the Ritzville community for the past two years and previously taught at Centennial High School in Portland, Ore.

The step up to an administration role is a position Strot has anxiously been awaiting the opportunity to serve in, and he has already begun preparations for the upcoming school year. Strot is a huge component of administrators living within the district they are working in, and recently secured a rental property in the Lind community, where he and his wife will be residing.

For the past two years, Strot has attempted to commute back to the Portland area to spend time with his wife Denise, who currently works in the Gresham School District. The couple has four adult children Bryant, Erik, Emilee and Kelsey, and two grandchildren, all of who reside in the Portland area.

Strot applied for the administration position in hopes of remaining in the communities and school districts he has become accustomed to during the past two years. He is hoping his knowledge of the area, students and the curriculum helps give him a jump start on the school year and implement the best policies possible for the school district.

Strot earned his Master’s degree in 2005 from Concordia University in Portland. He taught in the Centennial School District until layoffs in 2011 made him relocate to Ritzville, where he has become actively involved as the business teacher, Future Business Leaders of America advisor, leadership teacher and assistant track coach.

The Lind School District is comprised of Lind Elementary School and Lind-Ritzville Middle School and Strot will split his time between the two facilities. With the recent implementation of the Lind and Ritzville Cooperative Schools, Strot is looking to improve the cohesiveness between the two districts and communities.

“Right now we’re merging two communities, and Ritzville had their way of doing things and Lind had their way of doing things and I’m hoping to create a system where Lind-Ritzville is doing our thing. And it can be,” Strot said for the past school year. “The discipline system had been different, the teaching style was different, and so there was a lot of things that were different and we kind of mixed two systems together.”

“I think some of the struggles they went through this year, I’ll be able to benefit from next year. I’m trying to bring the two communities together and closer,” Strot added.

Strot explained one of the biggest benefits of making the transition to the Lind Schools is being able to work with current principal Brian Ellis. Ellis resigned from his position earlier this year and is taking an administration position in the Bridgeport School District next school year.

Over the course of the last two weeks of the school year, Strot has spent five days in the Lind School District meeting one-on-one with every teacher and introducing himself to all of the students in the classrooms. Strot believes the principal should be present in the hallways and classrooms on a daily basis in order to be accustomed to the teacher’s lessons and gain familiarity with the students.

Student focus is the primary goal for Strot and he hopes to develop the educational opportunities available for the students inside and outside of the classroom. Strot is an advocate of parents and community members becoming involved by volunteering at the school and helping provide outreach support to the students.

Along with developing an open door policy where parents are always welcome to visit with Strot, he also hopes to develop a stronger communication system between the school and the parents of the students. In a perfect world, Strot said, he would meet face to face with each parent of the district before the start of school next year, but due to the limited amount of time, he encourages parents to contact him with any concerns.

Strot hopes to expand the learning opportunities for students by bringing in a variety of elective courses. He hopes to offer leadership, agricultural and keyboarding classes, as well as others, to students at the middle school level in order to advance their experience in the classroom and help them develop a larger range of skill sets.

“The most important thing, and I think the other things will create it, is if you come to have a more cohesive system, if you bring the two schools together so its not just a Lind thing, or a Ritzville thing, it’s a Lind-Ritzville thing,” Strot said. “And I think if we add more electives and we get the students more engaged and we try to bring a student focus and we try to bring in the community then we will have the higher test scores.”

Throughout the past school year, one of the primary concerns of parents has been the discipline system in the local school district. Strot is aware of the concern and is preparing to implement a pyramid discipline system clearly instructing parents, teachers and students of the specific consequences of student’s misbehavior.

Another element Strot hopes to implement is a creation of an eight period class schedule. The extra period would provide detention hours for misbehaving students and allow other opportunities for students who may be struggling with course work to have additional time and help to complete assignments.

A new component Strot wants to incorporate into the school system is character education and teaching students basic manners and skills. Strot wants to be able to help instill skills like goal setting, time management and planning into the students at a young age as these skills will continue to be important in their development not only as students, but also as individuals.

With a strong technological background, Strot is fully intending to embrace technology in the classroom and also as a form of communication to parents and community members. The Lind-Ritzville Middle School has a Facebook page that will be used to update followers on awards, events and other successes at the school.

Strot encourages any parent, student or community member who has concerns or questions about the upcoming year to contact him directly.

He can be reached at the office at 509-677-3408, cell phone at 503-819-8941, or by email at [email protected].