A new age of Harmony
at the North Star – McKinley campus.

As most people know, North Star Academy was created on the campus of McKinley Middle School about eleven years ago. Two schools on the same campus required a redistribution of resources with some sharing of assets like the auditorium, gym and cafeteria.

This naturally caused some tension between the staff of McKinley and North Star when there were conflicts with reserving shared assets; who had priority, were resources being shared evenly, etc? I don’t blame the staffs of either school; I would like to believe that each was simply fighting to make sure their students were receiving their fair share of the resources.

This year things changed dramatically and harmony has been restored with a change of the guard. McKinley’s Principal retired last year and North Star’s Principal, Ray Dawley, shifted over to become McKinley's new Principal. Then, Wendy Kelly accepted the newly vacant Principal position at North Star. Wendy was North Star’s Vice-Principal for several years, but had left North Star about 3-4 years ago to become Principal at another local school.  

The upside to all this is that Wendy and Ray work extremely well together. I’m confident that they will take a real team approached to sharing the campus with a mutual vision of doing what is best for all kids on campus, regardless of the school name. School staff already has enough challenges in today’s difficult environment, competing for basic resources was not a distraction they needed and I’m glad to see it removed.