The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON—Doug Johnson is a man who loves kids and he will be involved with them, in some way, even after he retires at the end of June.

Johnson has been in the field of education for over 41 years, teaching history to middle school students, serving as a school principal, and as a school superintendent.

For the past year, he has performed a balancing act at the Dayton School District, as school superintendent and principal of the elementary school. Johnson stepped in to fill the vacant elementary school principal position after a budget deficit demanded the need for some creative solutions.

“It was really a kind of blessing that I was able to reconnect with kids. That’s the reason I got into it in the first place,” Johnson said. “As you move from teacher to principal, to superintendent, or doing central office stuff, you get farther away from kids, so it gave me an opportunity to go backward, which was nice.”

Johnson was also able to know the staff better, which probably served the District well in light of the school closures in March due to the COVID-19 challenge.

There have been many challenges during the time he has been the Dayton School District Superintendent.

Johnson came on board in July of 2009, when the District was suffering continued financial difficulties due to the closure of Seneca Foods, Inc. in 2005. With families moving out of the District, student enrollment, which drives funding, had dropped precipitously.

“We had gone from a school district of 650-700 kids down to 550, the first year, and we lost 100 kids before the second year, and another 30 to 40, kind of every year, until now it’s hovering around 400 for the last few years. It has been down to as low as 375 to 380, and as high as 425,” he said.

Five teachers had been laid off, but after taking a look at the budget, the District was able to hire four of them back. Until last year, there had been no additional lay-offs in the District.

“The first couple of years it was all about money. We were bleeding students and bleeding money,” he said. “There was $30,000 in the bank when I got here, and we were running a five-million-dollar budget.”

He said the district is at a point now where the ending cash balance is “comfortable.”

Johnson said he believes in providing adequate funding for smaller classroom sizes in the elementary school and more elective classes in the secondary schools.

Johnson said bringing Dayton and Waitsburg together for the Athletic Combine has been challenging.

“I think it has been effective in a lot of ways. It didn’t come easily. It will continue to be a struggle, because any time you are bringing people together in an organization, there will be issues,” he said.

The community can now say students are able to participate in athletic programs, which might not have happened otherwise.

Johnson pointed to the importance of providing students with extracurricular activities. He said learning to take direction from a coach can help kids in the work world, and perhaps having a passion for a particular extracurricular activity will be the driving force in keeping a student interested in school.

“You never know who’s going to go away with what, and so you keep trying to give kids what we perceive they need,” he said.

He said there are plenty of other concerns, including addressing the need to fix aging building infrastructure, trying to figure out a plan to deal with the most fundamental building issues without taking money away from the education side of things.

“You try to fix what you can,” he said. “We’ve tried to put together good plans for smaller capital projects, and complete projects we thought would have a long-term effect, like roof and boiler replacements,”

Adding the COVID-19 situation into the mix is also challenging, he said.

Trying to pin down what the beginning of school will look like in the fall and providing reliable information to parents has been challenging as the situation continues to change from week to week.

Johnson said continuous learning at home doesn’t compare with face to face learning in the classroom.

“I haven’t seen anything yet that replaces the classroom, where you can build on the thoughts, ideas, and questions from each student, with a teacher facilitating that learning in a face to face environment,” he said.

Johnson is grateful to his predecessor, Rich Stewart, for the Technology Levy, which provided students with Google Chromebooks for use at home.

He said the teachers are looking forward to applying some of what they have learned from the distance learning experience to the classroom after they return.

He also hopes the return to school will be better than just a return to normal, as students have spent quality time with their parents and have learned some new skills.

Johnson laughed when asked about the qualities that make a good superintendent.

“When you read the job description it’s usually one or two steps down from God. They don’t need God, but they need something real close to that,” he said.

He said the best qualities are the ability to listen, problem-solve, and encourage and inspire others to work toward a common goal.

“You have to be willing to take accountability and responsibility, sometimes for things you really have no control or not much control over,” he said. “You have to like people in general. You have to get to know and understand people because that will lead you to how you can provide a service to them. Lastly, you have to walk a narrow line between being a servant and having to do your job.”

He said a superintendent can offer ideas, thoughts, and strategies, but can’t be too far from what the community wants and should provide enough information to show the value in what is offered.

Johnson said hiring people who enjoy working in a small community setting has been rewarding, as has the ability to continue the tradition of engaging community support for education in the Dayton schools.

“It’s been fun,” he said about his eleven years with the Dayton School District.

Johnson is looking forward to retirement and doesn’t plan to look backward.

Lately, he has been wearing many Hawaiian shirts. He and his wife, Patti, had to cancel their annual trip to Hawaii this spring and hope to be able to go during the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Johnsons have seven adult children, six grandchildren with three more on the way.

“Our kids, fortunately, all live in the northwest. So, we look forward to some opportunities to visit,” he said.

Johnson might also be spotted with a camera at future local athletic games. He said he will have more time for photography in retirement, and looks forward to combining that with his love of local sports.

Now when he attends an athletic event, he will get to actually watch it.

“If I’m on the sideline and there’s a commotion, it will be somebody else’s responsibility,” he said with a smile.