Sherman County School principal announces resignation

The Sherman County School District Board of Directors voted Monday, Feb. 5, to accept the resignation of K-12 Principal Trent Kroll. Kroll, who also fills the role of Athletic Director for the district, announced this week he will be stepping down at the end of the 2023-24 school year, citing personal reasons.

Kroll came to Sherman from Hood River Valley High School, where he served as Assistant Principal and Athletic Director for five years. Prior to serving in an administrative position, he was a Spanish teacher and wrestling coach for many years.

"I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the opportunity to serve as the principal at Sherman County School," Kroll said in a statement emailed to The Times-Journal. "It has been an honor and privilege to be a part of this esteemed institution. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here, and it has been a rewarding experience working with dedicated staff, supportive parents and outstanding students."

Kroll said he plans to work closely with the current administration and board to help secure a replacement to fill his roles at the school. The timing of his announcement allows the district to open up the job and begin the hiring process for the 2024-25 school year.

"I understand that my departure may pose challenges, and I am committed to working diligently over the next few months to ensure a smooth transition," Kroll added.

At Monday's school board meeting, Superintendent Julia Fall said the next steps will be communicating with staff to get a sense of where the greatest needs are for administrative support.

"I feel like we really need to take a look at what are our needs in the building for K-12, and I want to do that by getting staff input first," Fall said. "While the position was a K-12 principal, I want to make sure as we move forward that it's exactly what it needs to be."

She said options include a creating dean of students, an elementary principal, a high school principal, or a superintendent/principal and vice principal position, among other configurations.

"Ultimately getting the best person, and the right person, in those positions and then playing off whatever staff strengths are," she said. "I see pros and cons to all of it."

She added that maintaining a cohesive plan for the school is essential.

"I'm told that everybody moving here, when we first got to this one campus - a lot of time, energy and effort went into getting us to be one K-12 school community," she said.

Board members brought up the potential need for multiple principals in a K-12 environment to handle issues such as student discipline. For example, with 288 students enrolled, if 10 percent need discipline per week, that's 30 students - which can be a lot for just one administrator, a board member suggested.

That plus the time spent in the athletic director role could mean there simply are not enough hours in the week for all that needs done under the current structure. In more traditional administrative configurations, there might be two or three principals handling discipline, each at the elementary, middle and high school levels.

Several board members offered high praise for Kroll, recognizing his dedication and involvement with students, athletics and extracurricular activities from the very beginning.

"I had to make a really hard decision in stepping down as principal," Kroll said at Monday's meeting. "The relationships that I built here at Sherman will last a lifetime, and that's the highlight for me. The people of Sherman County are just great people."