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Kingsley Middle School has doubled the size of its leadership team with the hiring of Assistant Principal John Arnold.
Mr. Arnold comes to the district with years of administrative, teaching, and coaching experience in various districts in Michigan, including Kalkaska most recently, as well as in Florida.
His role will be focused on creating a culture of positive behavior and facilitating parent communications.
"I am excited to get in and mix it up with kids. I love engaging students and being that positive presence for them. I enjoy having conversations with students and trying to lead them towards positive paths," said Mr. Arnold.
"I'm going to be very visible and in and around the building, supervision-wise, you know, out in the hallways between classes, in the cafeteria during lunch, out at rec time, just modeling and encouraging kids to use positive behavior, be good to each other and be kind to each other."
Two is Better Than One
Principal Heather Miller said the district administration team identified the need for additional support last semester.
"Just having an additional presence is going to be important for the day-to-day. If a teacher writes a referral, or if students are having behavior struggles, John is going to be their number one person that they're going to be seeing," said Principal Miller. "Likewise, if parents have concerns about discipline, he's going to be the frontman on that."
The two-person middle school leadership team will allow Principal Miller to focus on teaching evaluations, providing instructional feedback, and supporting the teachers overall.
"My focus will shift more to being an instructional leader, which is what I was hired to do. I will help improve proficiency in our different core content areas," said Principal Miller.
The Right Man for the Job
Principal Miller says Mr. Arnold's best quality is his patience.
"He does a great job of sitting and listening to what's going on and thinking things through before jumping right into something. His patience is coupled with thoughtfulness, so that he can help in the best way possible," said Principal Miller.
"He's down to earth, too. When he was here just for his interview and was walking the campus, the kids were naturally drawn to him. You know, he's 6'7" so he's definitely he's a presence! He's very relatable to kids and you could already see that the demeanor that he had with the kids was very positive."
Meet Mr. Arnold!
Alma mater: Western Michigan University
Hometown: Whitecloud, Michigan
Hobbies: "My wife and I are big concert junkies, and it's you know, all kinds of genres of music. This summer, we saw Bailey Zimmerman, Parker McCollum (twice), Morgan Wallen, and Train. We still have Nelly coming up at Pit Spitter Stadium Labor Day weekend and then Midland and Jon Pardi in Savannah, Georgia in late September. We also love to be outdoors and we love to boat."
Family: "We have five children. My oldest is 15, he'll be a sophomore this year, and then my youngest is my seven-month-old daughter!"
Pets: "We do have chickens. We have 14 that run around the yard!"
"I'm excited to be here in Kingsley. Being from the area, I know that Kingsley has had a great reputation as far as having academic and athletic success. I grew up in a small town just like this, and I'm very familiar with the demographic of students and families that are here."
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Reach out to Mr. Arnold! jarnold@kingsleyschools.org
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