Ready for a new challenge

Shannon Wurzer sat at her desk filling out some paperwork in a school building that has been, for the most part, filled with the sounds of silence since March 13.
She looked up, smiled and told the reporter that she couldn’t wait for that to change.
“I think every person who gets into education does it because they love kids,” she said. “They want to help them grow. They want to help them learn. So a school building isn’t the same without the kids. It’s too quiet.”
That will change on Monday just down the road at the district’s secondary schools, and Wurzer’s building will really come alive the following day when the elementary school has its first day of classes after holding “in-take conferences” on Monday.
When those students arrive, they will see a lot of signs of the COVID-19 pandemic. From a bulletin board of masks to the notes in the bathrooms reminding children of the importance of hand washing, it’s going to be a different school year.
And those students are also getting a new principal in Wurzer, who had been the shared curriculum director of the Tripoli and Nashua-Plainfield school districts. She was hired on Aug. 12 to replace Michelle Havenstrite, who was named the superintendent at Prairie City-Monroe last month.
— For more on this story, see the Aug. 20 Reporter