Back at the beginning of July, Crookston High School Assistant Principal Matt Torgerson took over as the school’s principal in place of Nicki Martinez after her resignation, with former Activities Director Greg Garmen being promoted up to the position of Assistant Principal. After a month of officially becoming the school’s principal, Principal Torgerson gave an update on some of the things he and the school have done so far and what they have planned for the upcoming 2022-23 School Year.
Torgerson has been with the Crookston School District for six years and has done many positions in the High School, ranging from a teacher to the Dean of Students and Assistant Principal. He officially took the position of School Principal on July 1 and began with a transition process with Martinez and Garmen to the new responsibilities they would be partaking with their new jobs. Soon after they were settled in their new offices, Torgerson got to work to begin preparing for the upcoming school year with the rest of the High School Office and School District staff. “July is our month in the district where the principals, the superintendents, and the business office gets our plan put in place for what’s going to happen this year and set it up. Because this week, starting in August, is when it starts getting busy. The teachers come back in. We’ve already started some of those meetings to get what our district and school goals are going to be,” said Principal Torgerson. “We can start looking at some of our test data and start discussing that. It’s still embargoed at this point but becomes unembargoed, and we can make it public towards the end of August, but we can use it for planning purposes amongst ourselves to figure out where we need to work and what attention our students need as far as academics come.” Torgerson says that many of the conversations he has had so far have been about how the school and administration will continue to help with the student’s mental health and make the school a safe space for them. He noted that it’s very likely that there will be some differences that will happen with him as principal, but he plans to work closely with the teachers and with the community’s parents to hear their input on how they can support the students.
With becoming the new principal of the High School, Torgerson noted that it’s a different shift from some of the work he did when he was assistant principal. Noting how when he was the assistant principal, his job was to oversee the student’s side of things, such as the attendance, their behavior, and working with the Student Council and National Honor Society to help the students keep their Pirate Pride up with things like the Pep Fests. On the other hand, the principal role oversees the adult and teacher’s side of things. “As the principal role, it’s a little more adult-focused in how I support the teachers, get them the professional development that they need, and how can we work as a team to make sure that Crookston High School is the best school in the area or the state,” said Torgerson. Some of these items include working with Assistant Principal Greg Garmen and Activities Director Nate Lubarski on the gym floor being redone and creating systems for the incoming students transitioning from Highland for the new Middle School addition that will begin construction next summer. Other than the current construction happening for the 2022-23 School Year, Torgerson hopes that he can work to enforce and clarify some rules in the student handbook. Mainly to create an appropriate yet fair gender-neutral dress code and to qualify students’ grade level based on their earned academic credits rather than their age or class they started with. “We put wording into our handbook of qualifying students’ grade level based on their academic credits earned rather than what age or class they started with,” said Torgerson. “It’s an accountability system that shouldn’t affect most of our students but hopefully will help us as the school, and the students and families, catch some of our struggling students earlier on.” He explained that the system will help prevent students from being short on credits for graduation due to struggling in courses when they were a freshman or sophomore and put the supports in place so they can pass the classes and help the students much sooner.
Along with Principal Torgerson, the school has also hired Interim Superintendent Dave Kuehn, in which Principal Torgerson has said so far, he has worked well with. “Dave and I have gotten along very well. I think that we can trust each other and have open conversations about where we need to go as a school or district, and I’m looking forward to it. I think he also is very aware that he’s here for the year to help us transition over to who our, hopefully, longer-term superintendent will be, but I’m glad that he’s the one here leading us this year.” Torgerson also mentioned that the district would begin making decisions on searching for a new Superintendent by December to have their request in earlier so they can have more applications to choose from.
Principal Torgerson is very excited to have this opportunity to work with the students and teachers and be the principal for the upcoming school year with the upcoming projects and incoming students. Torgerson will regularly attend the Crookston School Board meetings on the fourth Monday of every month, with the next one taking place on August 22 at 5:00 p.m. in the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room.
