Alan Stauffacher

New Heber Springs superintendent leads by example

New Heber Springs Superintendent Alan Stauffacher, 52, retired as head of a school district in Missouri and moved to Arkansas. He’s also been a teacher, coach and principal. “I guess I have a goal to stay in education as a superintendent for about another 10 years; that’s what I’d like to do,” he said. Stauffacher said he still owns a farm in Missouri and visits it a few times each month.
New Heber Springs Superintendent Alan Stauffacher, 52, retired as head of a school district in Missouri and moved to Arkansas. He’s also been a teacher, coach and principal. “I guess I have a goal to stay in education as a superintendent for about another 10 years; that’s what I’d like to do,” he said. Stauffacher said he still owns a farm in Missouri and visits it a few times each month.

The first thing people need to know about new Heber Springs School District Superintendent Alan Stauffacher is how to pronounce his name.

He pronounces it Stah-fi-sher. It’s mispronounced often, but “I’m used to it,” he said.

The 52-year-old southwest-Missouri native describes himself as “a farm boy.” He grew up with four older sisters on a farm in a small community called Dunnegan. His mother, uncle and grandmother were teachers, but Stauffacher didn’t automatically choose the education field.

He played sports in high school, including being a guard for the basketball team. When he went to Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, he considered a pre-med major, but his love of sports led him to get a degree in health, physical education and general science. His first job was coaching in Myrtle, Missouri, at a “little bitty ” school district called Couch, about 2 miles from the Arkansas line, he said. He coached basketball, baseball and cross country in junior high and high school and taught physical education and health.

“I loved it,” he said.

He said boys basketball was his favorite to coach, and he acknowledges that he was passionate on the sidelines.

“I was probably pretty fiery — not probably, I was, but I had a real close relationship with my kids,” he said, laughing. “I have matured a great deal.”

Stauffacher’s career also took him to a coaching and teaching job in Seymour, Missouri, for nine years. He then got into administration as middle school principal and athletic director at Stockton Middle School before becoming high school principal at Stockton.

“I think a high school principal job in any school is probably the hardest job there is,” Stauffacher said. “There are just a lot of things that are so pivotal as far as students’ lives — you’ve got graduation, the sports thing. There are just so many things that seem to be pressure points.”

However, he said he’s always liked high school students better than junior high. “I always felt like they were a little closer to being human beings,” he said.

“It’s not that I was running away from a job. I’m always trying to make myself better and expand my horizons. The only thing I hadn’t been was a district leader, so that’s what my motivations were,” he said.

It’s not like being an administrator was his burning desire.

“This is going to sound really strange, but I had several building administrators, and after getting my master’s degree, I thought, ‘Well, if they can do it, I can do it,’” Stauffacher said. “I’d always had the leadership background, so that’s one of the things I thought I could continue doing. I’ve always been pretty strong in that area. I think one of the things — people see my passion, and I’m enthusiastic. I’ve got a lot of, lot of energy.”

Stauffacher said he tries to lead by example, adding that he never asks his employees to do anything he wouldn’t do. He talked about something he did during his first superintendent job, for the Macks Creek School District: “I painted the whole school — every classroom and hallway.” He said his wife, Gayla, helped.

He spent three years in that district, but when the couple’s daughter was in the eighth grade, Stauffacher said, he and his wife decided they needed to move out of the small Macks Creek School District to give their daughter more opportunities and experiences.

He took a job as superintendent of the Butler School District in Missouri, about 70 miles south of Kansas City, where he stayed for five years, and from there, he went to Aurora, about 30 miles west of Springfield. He said he wanted to get back to the Springfield area because two of his four sisters lived nearby.

Last year, Stauffacher had 29 years’ tenure in Missouri, and he started thinking about retirement. In Missouri, 30 years is considered full retirement, he said. In the “rule of 80,” a Missouri state employee may retire if his age and years of service equal 80, so he retired with full benefits.

“I was talking to my wife, and I said, ‘I’m really not sure I’m quite tired of being a superintendent yet.” He put out feelers and applied for a superintendent’s position in Kansas, as well as the one in Heber Springs.

“Heber Springs was the first place I interviewed with, and they made it pretty clear they wanted me here. I said, ‘OK.’ It seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.

School board member Gary Redd said Stauffacher “just clicked” with the board.

“We had several applicants,” Redd said. “What we liked about Dr. Stauffacher is he came up through the ranks — teacher, coach, principal, then a superintendent at a school a little bit smaller than ours. We looked at everything he did for that school in Missouri, and we were really impressed.”

Redd said the board used Skype to talk with Stauffacher, then met him in person.

“He came across genuine,” Redd said. “We were seeing a good fit — 10 to 15 years he could be with us.”

Stauffacher had never lived in Arkansas, although he had visited the state before.

“It’s a beautiful area,” he said. “This is kind of like a new adventure, a new change. It’s kind of invigorating, too.”

Stauffacher has his master’s and specialist’s degrees from Southwest Missouri State University, now Missouri State University, in Springfield, and his educational doctorate is from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. He’s also taught college courses through the years, and he said that strengthened his view on what public-school teachers needed to be doing.

“I felt like I got a stronger grasp on some instructional things that were really

important,” he said. The Heber Springs School District, with an enrollment of about 1,700 students, is “typical of other school districts — there are things that need to be worked on and things they do real well,” he said.

As he settles in, Stauffacher said he has realized that his strengths align with what Heber Springs schools need.

“I’ve always been good at finance,” he said. “Being prudent with the money is what I do best. Over the years, I’ve become a strong instructional leader, so that plays well in what was needed here.”

Stauffacher said he came across the book Focus, by Mike Schmoker, and it changed how he viewed education.

“Students don’t have a right not to learn,” he said. “That sounds very simplistic, and you think every school should be that way, but honestly, very few schools are that way. It’s part of the sociology of how we are and how we act. We naturally try to make people feel good, and we don’t necessarily do the right things for people.”

Stauffacher is a big proponent of incorporating writing into every class.

“Students in schools have to write more; they just have to do more writing than what we expect out of them,” he said. “Our kids just simply don’t get enough practice at it. We know how people learn; we know there are certain things that people can do that really helps them retain information, and writing is one of those things.”

He’s also adamant that “passive learning has to change.”

“Kids don’t learn by lecturing,” he said. “Lecture five minutes, and let the kids digest and explore what they’ve learned and write about what they’ve learned. There are a lot of things we can do as far as really looking at what we do instructionally.”

He said the push in Arkansas, as well as in Missouri, is to get through an entire book or curriculum to make sure the state standards are covered for testing.

“Instead, we’ve got to pick out the most important things, and we’ve got to dive deep,” he said. “My basic belief is that if you do instruction right, you don’t have to worry about those tests. They will take care of themselves.”

As a superintendent new to Arkansas, Stauffacher is gaining another perspective on the educational system. He said he’ll be in the classrooms a lot to observe.

If he’s not in a classroom or in his office, Stauffacher might be found picking up trash or mowing on campus.

“Living in town and having a desk job doesn’t jive with my personality,” he said. “It keeps me busy, and I get to be an example for other people.”

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

Upcoming Events