New Nashua-Plainfield superintendent happy to be returning

By Bob Fenske, Nashua Reporter

In one sense, Keith Turner feels like he’s coming home. After all, Nashua-Plainfield was part of his professional life for a long time.

“It is exciting because Nashua-Plainfield, well, it has a special place in my heart,” said the district’s new superintendent. “My experiences there for 18 years were really wonderful, and to have a chance to be back in this role, it is exciting.”

Turner officially began his duties in Nashua-Plainfield on Tuesday and is replacing Randy Strabala, who retired at the end of 2017 after serving as the district’s superintendent for the past 9½ years, the last two of which his position was shared with Clarksville.

Turner, too, will be a shared superintendent. He will continue to also be the top administrator at Rockford, where he has served as an administrator for 10 years.

“When you have 100 districts sharing superintendents like we do in Iowa, it’s obviously not a unique situation,” he said, “but I think it’s something that’s become a must for rural districts like ours.

“When you have limited resources, you want to keep as many of those resources as you can for teaching our kids. Sharing a position like mine helps do that.”

Turner’s contract calls for him to work 55 percent of the time in Nashua-Plainfield and 45 percent in Rockford.

“Honestly, we’re going to do what works best for both districts,” he said.

“Nashua-Plainfield’s a little bigger. I’m new, if you will, to the district. It’s a good split, but it also doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be flexible.”

Turner left his teaching and coaching job at Nashua-Plainfield 10 years ago to become the principal at Rockford, and he has been both the district’s principal and superintendent for the past four years.

As part of the new arrangement with Nashua-Plainfield, he will no longer have his principal duties as Rockford.

“Those two jobs — superintendent and principal — are really night and day,” he said, “so in some ways, it becomes a little easier. As a superintendent going to meetings, the only difference is I’m representing two districts instead of one.”

The fact that both Rockford and Nashua-Plainfield are in the same conference also helps, as does Turner’s familiarity with his new district.

“I know some of the staff, I know what the culture is and we’re close enough that I understand that Scott (Stroud) has a great band, the FFA is strong and all those things,” he said. “Nashua-Plainfield has a lot of things going for it.

“Now, with the kids, it’s a little different. Ten years is a long time — they don’t have any idea about Mr. Turner.”

He understands that Nashua-Plainfield and Rockford face challenges typical of rural Iowa school districts.

“Declining enrollment obviously is a big one,” he said. “When I was at Nashua-Plainfield we had 900 students — we were as big as New Hampton is now. Rockford’s in the same boat, but we’ve worked hard to continue to offer great programs for our kids.”

District’s like Nashua-Plainfield remain near and dear to his heart. He graduated from Rockwell-Swaledale High School and has spent most of his educational career in the old Corn Bowl Conference.

He laughed when asked about this coming Tuesday’s basketball games between Nashua-Plainfield and Rockford.

“We’re getting it out of the way right away,” he said, “but seriously, it doesn’t matter if they wear red, black or blue, kids are kids. Our job is to give them the best education we can, and that’s what we’re going to do in both districts.”