SULTAN – The 2,300-student Sultan School District will draw its new superintendent from a tiny district east of the mountains.
Daniel Chaplik, 42, currently is superintendent of the 500-student Republic School District in northeastern Washington.
“My family and I are really ecstatic about the opportunity to move to Sultan and become part of the community,” he said.
Chaplik and his wife, Vickie, both grew up west of the Cascade Mountains, in Sumner and Bellingham, respectively.
With two young boys ready to enter school – Keaton, 4, and Brayden, 5 – the couple had been looking to settle back west.
“Sultan is a wonderful area,” Chaplik said.
Chaplik is scheduled to start July 1 with a $125,000 salary and three-year contract.
He replaces former superintendent Al Robinson. The board decided last summer not to renew Robinson’s contract. The former leader has since taken a superintendent’s post in the Marshall Islands.
Former administrator Dale Fortenbacher is serving as interim superintendent.
Sultan struggled in recent years to stay financially afloat. The state Auditor’s Office in 2004 reprimanded leaders for overspending three years in a row. At one point, the district was in the hole for more than $650,000.
The district, which has an $18 million budget, has been slowly building back its reserves.
School board members also have been dissatisfied with academic performance. Just more than one-third of this year’s juniors have passed state tests required for graduation. And less than 70 percent of Sultan High students graduate within four years.
School board President Craig Roesler said a top priority for the new superintendent will be getting all of the district’s schools working toward common goals.
“What we want to do is get a progression going from our preschool to high school – everyone knows what they’re doing, has the same goals and are working toward the same thing,” Roesler said.
In the end, the board wants to see those efforts pay off in higher scores on the 10th-grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning and more seniors graduating on time.
“He’s done some things in his old district that make us think he might be the best person to take us there,” Roesler said.
Before Chaplik arrived in Republic in 2005, district voters had turned down two levies in one year, a tax that is key to school operations.
“I think the school district, at least as perceived by the community – there just wasn’t a lot of trust there,” Chaplik said.
Many people pitched in to turn things around, Chaplik said. His job as superintendent was to provide the vision, he said.
The district established a nonprofit organization that brought in funds to avoid school cuts. Difficult contract negotiations with teachers also were resolved. And the next levy passed with a record high 67 percent approval.
Republic High School teacher Ted Torzewski said he and his wife, the district’s kindergarten teacher, will be sad to see Chaplik go.
“(He) walked into a hornet’s nest and … really seemed to work things out and turn things into a positive,” Torzewski said.
Chaplik will have served as superintendent in Republic for two years. Prior to that, he was an elementary school principal for five years in Tonasket.
He has been in education since 1993, teaching third and fourth grades as well as junior high math and technology.
The Sultan School District saw 15 people apply for the superintendent’s job and eventually whittled the list to three finalists, who were interviewed by school staff and the public earlier this month.
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