“This career has been one that sought me out,” she said at her last meeting. “It was not one I set out to do.”

She served in the role from July 2016 until her retirement earlier this month.

“I guess I just thought I would teach,” she told the Times Observer. “I love teaching.”

Stewart joined the district in 1991 and taught elementary at Pittsfield, Beaty and Sugar Grove for nine years, followed by two years of integrating technology throughout the district. She then joined the central office where she has worked in technology, curriculum and instruction, support services, human resources and other short-term assignments.

Times Observer file photo Recently-retired Warren County School District Superintendent Amy Stewart speaks during a board meeting in 2018.

She was appointed executive director in March 2015 and took on responsibilities including staff evaluation, policy development and implementation.

Switching from the classroom to working directly with teachers and administrators was something she enjoyed.

“I had no idea what I was signing up for,” she said. “I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I thought I could make a bigger impact.”

The education field generally – and Warren County specifically – have changed dramatically since the early 1990s.

Technology is one of those major drivers.

“When I started in education in 1991, I didn’t have a computer in the classroom,” she said. “Technology has been a total game changer from top to bottom.”

Now, every school district student has a computer.

Stewart said that brings “efficiencies” to the classroom but also comes with drawbacks.

“All things in good doses,” she said. “We see a lot of kids addicted to tech. I can’t even imagine the amount of harm social media has done.”

The county has also changed. Population continues to decline. The district’s budget size has risen by roughly one-third in the last decade.

Will the current school district system work into the future? Is there a tipping point?

“We’re getting dangerously close,” Stewart said. “We’ve been incredibly responsible with fund balance and spending.”

“The rubber that’s going to meet the road” is the federal ESSER COVID dollars. Those dollars were used to “put people in front of kids. All of those dollars are going to come out of the budget.”

On the expenditure side, she said that three-fourths of the district’s budget is people.

“All those people cost percentages more every year,” she said, complicated by the fact that declining enrollment doesn’t see the district losing kids “in one pocket” but rather “losing 100 out of 100 different classrooms.”

Those strains manifested – again – last year when debate over high school reconfiguration came back to the forefront.

“If it was easy it would be done by now,” she said. “No one enjoys the angst.”

She pointed out, though, that the issue of declining resources isn’t just impacting the school district but entities like the fire service, emergency medical service and the U.S. Postal Service.

“Everybody is struggling,” she said. “Until people can embrace a county-wide mentality… (we are) going to continue to have difficulty.” There’s a need to “come up with creative and different solutions.”

Where’s the tipping point where the school district’s current model breaks?

“I would say it’s already not working,” Stewart said. “Schools have lost … opportunities…. It’s not working how it could or how it should.”

The “most frustrating part,” she explained, was “being challenged over and over again on the integrity of the data” while the discussion “mainly focuses on sports and maintaining a school, not providing excellent academic opportunities.”

That’s why administration and teachers get frustrated.

“The more things I ask them to do, the more classes I ask them to teach, it makes it harder for them,” she said. “How many plates can you have in the air and do it well? If I spread them too thin, we are not going to achieve that academic excellence. That’s not the focus of the conversation.”

In spite of those challenges, and based on whatever study you look at, Stewart exceeded the average length of a superintendency.

“The longevity is known to not be long,” she said. “I had the opportunity to watch a lot of people do it in different ways.”

That gave her opportunities to think through whether she felt she could succeed in the role and how she would do it.

“I decided pretty early on I just had to be myself,” Stewart said. “You can’t protect. Morally, ethically, professionally, know what you stand for. I had a board that was aligned as well. I think that’s when you get the longevity. Pointing the boat in the same direction can really make things happen.”

There was a hesitancy, though, to take the position.

“You either stay true to yourself… or you bend who you are and what you’re all about. At that point you know you have to go. I needed to get my family to a point where it would have been possible to move on.

“I did hesitate,” she said. “I was thoughtful about it, knowing when the right time was for me to throw my hat in the ring.”

Being a public school district superintendent is equal parts education and politics.

“There are a lot of distractions,” Stewart said. “I wish we could come here every day and talk about the best instruction for kids.”

Issues like the pandemic and the teacher strike can “take you off course.”

“Getting our arms around what’s going to happen with the count, declining enrollment, is another distraction to focusing on education,” she said. “If we’re focusing on bricks, we’re not focusing on what is happening instructionally in the classroom. That’s going to be a big challenge going forward.

Her number two – Gary Weber – has been selected as her replacement. He was given a five year contract last month.

What will his biggest challenge be?

“Getting five new board members up to speed on a complex budget is going to take some time. That’s got to be first and foremost,” Stewart said.

She said Weber’s familiarity with the district will keep that learning curve short.

“We have to develop a master facilities plan,” she added. “That MFP is out there on the horizon. Our facilities are in pretty good shape.”

From a bricks-and-mortar perspective, Stewart said the next school to make decisions on is Youngsville High school.

“The envelope is starting to show wear,” she said. “Those decisions are out there.”

There’s ongoing curriculum work, the need to evaluate the Sheffield-to-Warren shift, discussion about the kindergarten age and the number of periods in the school day.

Her retirement brings a more than 30-year career in education to a close.

What is she most proud of?

“(There’s) not one thing,” she said. “Not one particular program. I’m proud of the way I was able to lead that enabled all kinds of good things to happen.”

She said the benefits of developing relationships and empowering employees to do the best things for students meant “magical things are going to happen” she didn’t see coming.

“We built a lot of really good programs, through hundreds of people’s efforts. As I reflect upon that, the leadership that provides the ability to be able to do that” is something she’s proud of.

“Part of my style, you have to be calm, steady, professional. I think we’ve done all those things (and) set the tone” for how the district is “gong to lead and serve kids.”

At no point were those traits rested more than the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Nobody would have ever thought what we went through. I couldn’t have dreamt it,” she said. The approach was “do the best we can with what we have. It goes back to the people. It wasn’t anything about me but a team of people that stood ready. That’s how good systems work.”