McBride to take over as White Pigeon superintendent
A Chief at heart has ascended to the highest position at White Pigeon Community Schools.
Pending the formality of board approval next week, Shelly McBride will become the district’s superintendent July 1. She replaces the two-person administrative team of Jon Keyer and Carrie Erlandson, who both quietly retired at the conclusion of the 2021-22 school year.
McBride, a 1997 White Pigeon High School graduate, said she struggled coming to terms with ending her 13-year career as Central Elementary’s principal. But, she quickly added, openings for superintendent don’t occur every day.
“When I started at White Pigeon, my plan has always been to try to stay in White Pigeon,” she said. “Over the years, obviously, the role of superintendent has come up a couple of times, like, if I’d be interested in the future, so I started preparing myself for that. But the goal was to stay in White Pigeon; I knew for certain I did not want to leave here.”
Board president Nicole Sigler said Keyer and Erlandson left the 730-student district on good terms. She praised their work ethic and ability to effectively fill the role of superintendent as a team.
Bringing in McBride from the on-deck circle was an easy choice, Sigler said. She said there’s nothing phony about McBride’s devotion and love for White Pigeon.
“Shelly’s born and raised here, she knows the community, she knows the staff, she knows all of us on the board, I went to school with Shelly … we wanted somebody that is a Chief, that won’t leave, that won’t treat this job as a stepping stone,” Sigler said. “Shelly has expressed this is a long-term thing, she’s in-house and not somebody from a far-flung location who knows nothing about the community.”
McBride’s post at Central Elementary will be filled by Eric Kistler, who most recently served as the district’s jr./sr. high assistant principal and athletic director the past six years. Brooke McClure, who has served as assistant principal with McBride at Central, will replace Kistler.
The district’s board of education meets Tuesday next week, at which time a contract for McBride is expected to be approved. Sigler said McBride’s salary is being negotiated and will be formalized at the meeting.
Sigler said the duties previously overseen by Keyer and those handled by Erlandson will be merged, and fall on McBride’s shoulders.
“Jon and Carrie shared the role and they were both there part time, so now we’ll have somebody there full time, going between both buildings, so her presence will be known every day,” Sigler said. “We were hoping Jon and Carrie would stay one more year, but as the school year wore on, they started talking about they wanted to retire, so we started the transition process with Shelly once we knew for sure what was happening.”
McBride has two children who attend White Pigeon High School, one will be a senior and the other a sophomore. She is the daughter of now-retired, longtime WPHS principal Patrick West.
When the 2022-23 academic year starts, McBride will join Chad Brady in Centreville, Rachel Kowalski in Colon, Joe Holloway in Constantine and Nikki Nash in Three Rivers as first-year superintendents at their respective districts. Brady and Nash had served as interim superintendent for a portion of the 2021-22 academic year.
This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: McBride picked as White Pigeon superintendent
