NORTH ROBINSON, OH (CRAWFORD COUNTY NOW)— After 12 years at the helm and 15 within the district, Superintendent Todd Martin has resigned as superintendent of the Colonel Crawford Local School District.
“I think when you go to school somewhere, and you have success there; I mean, I had a great experience here as a student, you know, I had a nice athletic career here, academics, I made great relationships here, I guess I had fond memories here, and I returned and a lot of the people that were here when I was a player and student were still here, so those relationships, I just rekindled. It was like coming home, and it was nice,” Martin said of returning to the Colonel Crawford School District in 2009 to be the high school principal after 14 years away.
After only three years as the high school principal, Martin was approached about being the superintendent when Mr. Ted Bruner was ready to retire.
“Mr. Bruner came to me in 2012 and said, ‘I need you to be superintendent.’ So my interview consisted of, ‘I need you to be superintendent. Can you do this?’ I didn’t think I was ready at the time, but I don’t think anybody is ready for this job until you sit in the seat and you learn it,” Martin said.
While Martin had big shoes to fill and wasn’t so sure initially, he matched his predecessor’s footsteps stride for stride since day one.
Since the beginning, Martin has had clear goals for continuing to run the district: maintaining a quality standards-based education, maintaining a safe and welcoming environment for students, and community engagement.
Teachers receive professional growth and professional development opportunities to help achieve goal number one within the district. “We scored really well in 2022 but did even better in 2023 – we had a 4.5 out of 5 scale, which exceeded state expectations. I am so very proud of where we are at academically,” Martin said.
Goal two, however, is the one that Martin feels is the most important.
“I think academics are very, very important, don’t get me wrong, but I think if you miss out on an opportunity to make kids feel appreciated and welcome, I think you’ve missed the boat. So, I think goal number two is as important to me as anything we do. I challenge my teachers to do what I do, and I try to model the behavior I want from others. I think if I expect somebody to act a certain way, I should conduct myself that way every day. I come to work with a smile and a positive attitude every day. I try to never let a bad day impact my kids here at school or impact my staff. Do we have bad days? We do, but when you walk into the classroom and the building, I think your best foot forward should be taken, and you should have a smile on your face, and you should love those kids,” Martin said. “I’ve tried to live that here in the time I’ve been here; I think I told my teachers about two years ago at an in-service, and I told them again this year that we need to prioritize relationships. If you think your job is just teaching academics, you’ve missed the boat in education; you truly have–it’s got to be about relationships with your peers and relationships with the kids; if kids come into your classroom and want to stare at the clock the whole time because they want to get out of there, you’re not doing what you need to do. They need to want to come to your class and want to hear what you’ve got to say, and that’s what I am about.”
Regarding goal three, community engagement, the Colonel Crawford community is quite familiar with the concept.
“I think a successful school district has to engage their community with communication, with newsletters, with a Facebook page, with an app that we’ve started, and your leaders should be at events, they should be at concerts, so I try to be at concerts, ballgames, people need to see you. They need to feel that you are a part of it to make them feel a part of it. And I really think our community is a part of this district – we celebrate successes, we are at ballgames and programs, but then we rally together for tragedies. This is a special place. It’s been 15 years of ‘I have no regrets.’ I’ve felt the love of this community, and I try to give it back,” Martin said.
Though the move from principal to superintendent and having his office moved to the North building removed Martin from being right in the midst of all the students all day, he likes to stay involved in their everyday lives at school. “I try to greet kids in the mornings when they come to school. I said that one of the biggest challenges for me would probably be being removed from the kids from principal to superintendent. So I have made a conscious effort to not let that happen, I greet the elementary kids as much as I can, and I greet the high school kids as much as I can. I try to model the behavior I want from my staff.”
Beyond his three main goals, Martin noted positives within the district, including success with student activities, open enrollment, and facilities.
“Our athletic success here is amazing for a small school. We are consistent. You know, it’s supposed to be hills and valleys, but we’ve been riding a hill for a while. I am very proud of our fine arts, our programs, and what we put out there on stage with the musicals, I think is second to none,” Martin said. “I think the job that our staff and the community, what they’ve created here, has created a destination where people want to come. We are over 30% open enrollment. The population in Crawford County for students has dropped immensely over the past decade and a half; we’ve maintained our population because people want to be here. I think we just have to keep maintaining our goals and treating people right.”
Over the past decade, the district has made many updates to the school facilities and school grounds. The school is adding a new multi-purpose building that will be finished later this summer, which has been a need within the district for a while.
“We’ve done some things with the facilities over the past years, added a high school addition as part of the OFCC project, and were able to refinish the parking lots, which were in really bad shape, using leftover money from that project. We put on new roofs; one roof was paid for on the north building with money leftover from the project, and for the other roof, we used money from ESSER funds leftover from Covid. We put all new doors and all new windows on the North building, put in new boilers, and new air handlers; we have utilized money that we didn’t have to go back to the taxpayers for. I would like to say we’ve been good stewards of the finances – we’ve stretched that tax dollar. I think since we’ve done that, we’re putting up a new multi-purpose building that this district desperately needs. We are not going back to the taxpayers for it because I think we’ve managed the money so well we had a surplus to complete this vision to give the community what they deserve: a facility for kids and the community to use,” Martin said.
While Martin won’t be directly or closely involved with the Colonel Crawford school district, he will still be able to be engaged to a certain degree within the confines of his new job.
“The position I am going to at the North Central Ohio Education Service Center is one of Deputy Superintendent; it’s a large footprint in Ohio. You know I am a man who likes to challenge himself, and this is just the next phase for me to challenge myself with a bigger footprint; I want to impact a bigger area – I just want to keep growing. I think you stop growing as a professional, it’s time to retire, and I’m not ready to retire yet; I want to keep my growth going. I will still have an impact because this district is one of the member schools of the North Central Ohio Education Service Center, so I will still be a part, just in a different capacity,” Martin said. “It would have to be the perfect opportunity for me to leave here. The job kind of sought me out; I wasn’t really looking for this opportunity because I didn’t know it existed. The superintendent reached out to me, and we had some dialogue about what I’d heard about this job; what I know about the ESC is they have provided us with some great services this whole time I’ve been here. They’re a big part of the reason we are a 4.5 out of 5 because they provide opportunities for my staff to grow. Knowing what they do behind the scenes, I think I’d like to be a part of that and continue to help this school as well as other schools.”
When it came to leaving, the decision wasn’t one that Martin took lightly or made easily.
“Walking away was a decision that took me a while; I struggled and wrestled with it for longer than I would let on. It was a struggle. I was a yes for a minute, then I was a no; I wasn’t sure, but after my wife and I and the family weighed everything, it’s the right decision, and it’s the right time to make this move. The district is in great shape, and I am going to continue working hard through the end of July to make sure everything is left in good standing like Mr. Ted Bruner left it for me; Mr. Bruner left a very good district for me to maintain and not screw up. So I am just trying to do what Mr. Bruner did, just trying to leave the district in the best shape that I can.”
The district will always hold a special place in his heart, no matter where Martin is.
“What’s special about this district is we don’t have a lot of turnover; our teachers, our support staff, cooks, and bus drivers are the same people year in and year out. They want to be here, and they give to kids. The administration a lot of schools, there is a lot of change with the administration; we don’t. We have the same admins year in and year out. We have stability and a good, knowledgeable group that works with kids, and I always boast this; I have never had a bad board member. Every board member I have and that I’ve had put kids first; that’s the center of their decisions. There’s no hidden agenda; there’s not somebody that they want to get on to fire. It’s been about the mission to kids, and that is a big part of the reason we’ve been successful,” Martin said. “I think whoever takes over, as long as they prioritize relationships and modeling what they want of others, they’ll be fine. As they say in a lot of books I’ve read, walk your talk; don’t come here and talk it, and not walk it. This district will recognize that quickly. They want somebody who values the kids, values the community, and values the staff. And, like I said, if you prioritize relationships and modeling the right behavior, I think you’re going to be fine.”