Kovach reflects on OHS job
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 10:46 AM PST
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| Ontario High School Associate Principal Andy Kovach talks to some students waiting outside his office Monday morning. While Kovach is still new at the high school, he was the previous principal of Pioneer Elementary School and has worked in Nyssa as well. |
ONTARIO — While Ontario High School Associate Principal Andy Kovach admits he is still finding his way around the ins and outs of the high school, he is no stranger to the workings of school districts.
Prior to starting at Ontario High School at the beginning of the school year, Kovach was the principal of Pioneer Elementary School for six years. Prior to that, Kovach was the assistant principal at Nyssa Middle School, director of student services and special education at the Nyssa School District, a social studies teacher at Nyssa High School and special education and reading teacher in the Crane School District in Harney County.
“I was actually born in western Oregon, and I got over here as soon as I could,” the Salem-native said. “I’ve always really loved Eastern Oregon.”
Last year, when the district was making budget cuts and rearranging some of the administrative positions in the school district, Kovach was given four or five options for reassignment because his position at Pioneer was going to be merged with another principal position. He chose the associate principal position at the high school after Jan Tschida’s retirement at the end of last school year.
“One of the things that really attracted me is all the things going on up here,” he said. “This is where all the action is.”
Kovach, 45, said he is still getting accustomed to the high school’s climate, hearing people’s concerns and handling a lot of day-to-day discipline issues, but he enjoys the work.
Kovach is also facilitating the meetings for the school schedule plan, which is something he is very enthusiastic about. He said, he was asked to oversee the meetings, but if he had not been asked, he would have volunteered.
“I think this is where a lot of things are coming together,” he said.
Kovach, who has been married to his wife, Becki, for “a long time,” has a 24-year-old daughter living in western Oregon, a daughter who is a sophomore at OHS and a son in the fifth grade at Aiken Elementary School. He said he is pleased with the education his children have received in the Ontario School District.
“I think that we’re working hard,” he said of the school district. “I think we’re doing a lot of things well.”
At the same time, Kovach said he thinks there are things to improve upon in the district as well, but that is not exclusive to just the Ontario School District. He said he has never believed education is a machine that is created and then admired from a distance.
“Kids are a moving target. Education is a moving target,” Kovach said, stating students and education are constantly changing and requires adapting to. “I think that’s one of the hard things about education.”
He said there is some truth to the notion that the education pendulum is constantly going back and forth, with things going in and out of fashion through time, but he does not think that’s necessarily a bad thing or that when one educational idea goes out of style it means it never served a useful purpose. Education, he says, is dynamic, and, when old ideas run their course, the new or revisited ideas and programs and even schedules implemented serve a new set of students or address a new set of needs.
“I feel teaching’s a calling, and it’s a calling I have and one I enjoy,” he said.
Kovach said, what he hopes to bring to the high school is knowledge into what is happening at the school, strong leadership and communication.
“Somebody who can help supply a vision and positive attitude,” he said.
While Kovach eventually would like to be a superintendent of a school district some day, he does not have any immediate goals other than working through the current challenges and tasks at the high school.
“I’m doing what I enjoy doing right now,” he said. “I’m awfully happy doing what I am doing.”
