Meet MCS’s new superintendent!
Manchester’s new superintendent, Steve Head. Courtesy photo.
by Sara Swanson
After a months-long process, Manchester Community Schools selected a new superintendent in June.
Steve Head comes to us from Onsted, where he taught history and filled multiple administrative roles in the high school and middle school before serving as the district’s superintendent for eight years. He isn’t leaving Onsted directly for Manchester, however, he retired in between and made it about two months before he realized he was not ready to be retired. He explained, “I thought I was ready to be done, but I’m not. And so I started looking around, …the small town schools are really my favorite kind of places. It’s the center of the community many times.”
Something he is particularly looking forward to is how supportive Manchester is of the schools. He remembers watching the bond election closely and being impressed when it passed. He stated, “That’s just shows me that, you know, people [here] really do care about their schools.”
Head lives in Onsted and commutes the 30 minutes to work. After working minutes from his job for decades, he finds that he enjoys being able to decompress in the car on the way home. His wife, Karen, is also a teacher, and after teaching elementary school in Blissfield for years, she now teaches in the early childhood program at Jackson ISD. They have two grown children out in the world living their lives.
One question until recently unanswered was whether Head would also be serving as Riverside Intermediate School’s principal, a role Dr. Bezeau filled multiple times over the course of his tenure as superintendent. Head will not. He just announced that, pending board approval, Tom Johns, most recently of Napoleon Schools, has been hired as the new Riverside principal and athletic director for the district.
Head is going out and meeting community members. This has taken the form of meeting with different community groups and officials, and in one group’s case, joining! Head went to the most recent Lions Club meeting as a guest and left a member. Being part of a service organization is nothing new for him, though, as he was a member of Kiwanis in Onsted for 30 years. (Manchester’s Kiwanis Club dissolved in 2019.) “I always feel it’s important as superintendent to do that kind of thing, to be part of that service organization, so I’m excited to be part of that and help out,” he said.
For now, his goal is to talk to as many people as possible and be comfortable enough that people feel comfortable coming to talk to him. He stated, “I’m excited for the staff to come back so we can get a chance to meet each other and get to know each other better, too. The kids I’ve met are just fantastic. Parents have been wonderful. I’m really happy to be here, truly. You know, it’s a little bit different now, coming to a community that I wasn’t in forever, and being kind of objective and seeing things, different perspectives and things. So I’m looking forward to learning more as I go.”
He will be holding quarterly coffee hours that will be open to the community. These will be held at different times of day, different days of the week, so everyone should be able to attend at least one. He will be scheduling these shortly.
Welcome to Manchester, Steve Head!
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