CRESTLINE — The Crestline Exempted Village Schools Board of Education filled three positions during a special meeting Tuesday evening as the district prepares for the new school year.
The board hired two individuals who will fill the roles of middle and high school principal, athletic director and technology coordinator.
Gregory Travis Jr. was hired as the middle and high school assistant principal and athletic director.
Travis is coming from his most recent job as a seventh grade teacher at Minerva Local Schools east of Canton. This will be his first administrative job.
Travis has a plethora of athletics experience as well, Crestline Superintendent Matt Henderson said. He has experience as a varsity baseball coach and was a collegiate baseball player at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, an NAIA university in the Crossroads League.
“When you look at someone with collegiate athletic experience, you’re talking about someone who understands, first of all the work ethic it takes to be a collegiate athlete, a person who knows how to balance the athletic and the academic side to be successful,” Henderson said.
He added he learned Travis continued that drive for success with his high school coaching career, especially in terms of fundraising for the Minerva baseball program.
This will not be the first time Henderson and Travis have interacted.
“When I was at (Ashland) Crestview, he was a student of mine. I think he was a sixth or seventh grader,” Henderson said. “Then I got the administrative position at Bucyrus as an assistant principal with Mr. (Kevin) Kimmel, and lost track of (Travis).
“He eventually moved back to my understanding to the Canton South area, graduated from high school over where he’s from.”
Travis reconnected with Henderson when the position was posted a second time. Henderson said Travis did very well in the interview process.
“I feel he’s going to be another strong hire for our district,” Henderson said.
Travis was selected from approximately a dozen applicants according to Crestline Interim Superintendent John Miller.
The board also hired another first-time employee to fill the district’s new technology coordinator role as the Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) Administrator.
Donna Eaton comes to the district after working in the private sector for more than 20 years, Miller said.
Eaton worked in various capacities for CenturyLink.
“With her expertise, we’re a one-to-one district (where each student has a computer device), she understands the device side of it and she also understand, more importantly, the backside of it with servers and network,” Henderson said. “The invisible side of technology.”
Henderson said Eaton will be in charge of personal devices, phone systems, network servers and other aspects.
He said the only learning curve for Eaton will specifically be how things are handled at Crestline.
The position recently was created at Crestline after the district’s previous service provider discontinued technology coordinator services it previously had offered.
The board then entered into executive session to conduct the annual evaluation of the superintendent (interim) and treasurer.