With the new school year starting in just about a month, Stacie Reichensperger is ready for the challenge as the new associate superintendent for Catholic schools. An educator for 20 years, she joined the office in late June and succeeds Marilyn Missel who retired earlier this year.
Reichensperger spent the last three years as principal at Little Flower School in Springfield. She and her family — which includes her husband Joel, daughter Payton and son David — are members of Little Flower Parish.
She has her associate's degree in business from Springfield College in Illinois, her bachelor's degree in art education from Illinois State University and her master's degree in educational leadership from the University of Illinois, Springfield. She spent 17 years as an educator in the Ball Chatham School District where she was a teacher, team leader and coordinator of the district's summer school program before becoming a Catholic school principal.
"My husband and I both attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through high school and I went on to earn my associate's degree from a Catholic college — so Catholic education has always been important to both my family and my husband's family," Reichensperger says. "We always knew our children would go to Catholic schools." Payton is going into her sophomore year at Sacred Heart-Griffin High School and David will be a third-grader at Little Flower.
Basically Reichensperger says she is working with curriculum for all the 48 Catholic schools in the diocese, is in charge of new principal orientation and on-going professional development for principals.
Reichensperger remembers how excited she was when she became principal of Little Flower School in 2012 and says she remained very close to her "new principal class." Now, one of her first major assignments will be greeting the educators who are joining that rank as Catholic school principals in diocesan parishes this fall. "We have 10 new principals coming on board and I look forward to meeting them in early August," she says.
"At our first meeting we'll be going over all the policies and basic information and then we'll have additional meetings with them throughout the 2015-2016 school year to guide them through their first year in their school," she says. "In addition, we put out monthly principal updates from August through May for all of our principals to provide support and resources during the year."
More than anything, principals should be able to feel free to ask questions and have those questions answered, she says. As a principal she had questions for Missel and she is sure principals will have questions for her.
"We're here to help principals with the school year, whether it is filling out state forms or dealing with administration details. We have very much an open-door policy here, and that is a great thing. With Catholic schools it is all about networking and we're the hub of the network."
Jean Johnson, superintendent of Catholic schools, says both she and Reichensperger are grateful that Missel, who served in the diocesan education offices for over seven years and has returned periodically as a consultant, left the associate superintendent office in such great shape.
"You know, Marilyn's whole life was devoted to Catholic education. She was a teacher, then a principal and then she came here. She brought a wealth of knowledge to her position," Johnson says. "We miss her here in the office but we are happy she is doing well and is enjoying her retirement with her husband, children and grandchildren."
Although she is sad to no longer be working with Missel, Johnson says, "We are just delighted that Stacie is here." She and Reichensperger agree that they are both "excited to do good things."
"I have a great support team in making this transition and Marilyn says she is always available if I want to talk to her about things that might come up. The way I see it is that when I was a principal I was the leader of the teachers and now I am one of the leaders of the principals," Reichensperger says. "I am so happy to be getting started here!"