New school leader takes the helm

Jeff Carron knows a good thing when he sees one.

And that’s why he’s excited about being the new principal at Saukville Elementary School, a job he began Wednesday, July 1.

“It’s very high achieving, it has an excellent reputation in the local community and I love seeing administrators and teachers go to the district and the school and stay,” Carron said last week. “There’s not a lot of turnover. It’s a highly desirable place to go to. People want to stay here.”

Carron succeeds Chad Brakke, who left to become superintendent of the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District.

Carron, 34, comes to Saukville from the Holy Hill Area School District where he was a middle school principal for the last four years and was part of a team that consolidated the Richfield and the Friess Lake school districts in 2018.

Before that, Carron was an instructional coach, elementary school dean of students and fourth-grade teacher in the Wauwatosa School District.

Carron’s interviews for the job were done remotely and he was hired before he ever set foot in the school.

“I actually parked outside the school and peeked in the windows,” he said. “It was definitely an interesting interview process, but it worked well.”

Port Washington-Saukville School Supt. Michael Weber said Carron’s ability to connect with people stood out in the interview process. 

“People are really going to enjoy working with him,” Weber said. 

Carron, who will be paid $95,000 in his new job, grew up in Two Rivers — “a town a lot like Port Washington,” he said — and lives in Cedarburg, having moved there in 2018, with his wife Amanda and their two children, ages 3 and 1.

Being closer to home was another reason why Carron coveted the Saukville job, he said. 

“Working close to home is real important to me and not having to go through a lengthy commute,” he said.

His wife was a career counselor at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha but opted to stay home with their young children.

“We believe there’s a ton of value to staying at home with your children and we decided that was the best move for us,” he said.

What Carron is most looking forward to at his new job is getting to know the school staff, the students and their parents, he said.

That’s also going to be perhaps his biggest challenge in the Covid-19 environment that school districts everywhere have to deal with.

“One of the biggest challenges is just getting parents and students back,” he said. “Human interaction — that piece has been missing. It’s important for our mental and emotional health. It’s even more challenging to not be there for our kids.”

While the state Department of Public Instruction has offered some broad guidelines, it’s still unclear how or when students and staff will return to school.

“We’ve gotten some guidance from DPI that we can dig into, but we are really dependent on those guidelines and those documents first,” Carron said.

In the coming days he will be meeting with Weber and the rest of the district’s administrative team and staff to figure out how to approach the coming school year, he said.

“I’m very excited. I’ve met with Dr. Weber, and the administrative team has been very welcoming,” Carron said.

He also has met with school staff and introduced himself and has sat in on a few meetings in person, he said. 

“I’m most looking forward to getting to know the students and the families. I haven’t had much of a chance to do that yet,” he said.