Author photo

By Garth Meyer
Gazette Reporter 

Paul Clark is new Colton super

 

September 20, 2018



A barnyard mechanic growing up on the foothills of Mt. Spokane, Paul Clark later spent five years on the Arctic Circle before he moved south to Nome, Alaska.

He moved to Colton this summer to take over as superintendent and high school principal.

Clark came from Curlew, most recently, where he was the principal after he and his wife and his four kids' time (teaching) in Alaska.

The hunting limit, he noted, was five caribou per day, in season.

Clark, 39, a former offensive tackle for Gonzaga Prep, also went to Whitworth where he played football for a week and later graduated with a degree in French. He got his master's degree in teaching, also from Whitworth.

“I don't want to be cheesy, but whenever you've got people in a place, you have the opportunity for problems and you have the opportunity for promise,” Clark said.

His first teaching job was at St. George's in Spokane teaching lower-school French (K-5).

“French is still the second-most taught second language in the world,” Clark said.

He and wife Georgia bring four children to Colton, ages 3-10, with the three oldest now going to school at Colton.

Nine of the last 10 school districts Clark has taught at have been single-site K-12 (1B) schools.

“Love 'em. Absolutely love 'em,” said Clark.

In 2009, he got a 10-year-service pin with the Mt. Spokane Ski Patrol.

When he took over as superintendent at Colton, Clark found a problem at the start of the school year as the forecasted 150 full-time-equivalent students turned out to be 175.

He will work on that issue and others as his job takes hold in Whitman County.

“If a school is not a safe, welcoming place of learning to a child, that child won't be able to learn,” he said. “We don't know what that child's life is like the two to three hours before they get to school. We commit educational malpractice as a district if we don't treat that kid as a whole person.”

In Clark's own school days, some of his favorite teachers from middle school and high school were for English class.

What were some of his favorite assignments?

“Oh my ... I did not like 'Catcher in the Rye',” Clark said. “I thought that guy was a whiner.”

He succeeds Nate Smith in Colton, who served as superintendent and high school principal for the past seven years. He returned to Grangeville, Idaho, to work in his father-in-law's ranching and property management business.

Clark indicated he's found Colton to be in order.

“Colton is a well-oiled machine,” he said.

Author Bio

Garth Meyer, Former reporter

Author photo

Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.

 

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