Knox Middle School Principal, Steve Cronk, was going over his last analysis of ISTEP results when Anita Goodan walked into his office for his last radio interview. The reigns are being handed to Assistant Principal, Dave Miller, who has been in that position for the past 17 years.
“Dave will do a marvelous job. He does a great job of things that a lot of people haven’t really seen because he’s had the Assistant Principal job. Dave is a real lover of kids. He has a very close relationship with kids which will get closer as he moves out of that discipline role into the Principal role.”
Mr. Cronk says there has been a lot of changes in education since he began in 1969, especially in the last eight years he’s been at Knox.
“The big change in education that I’ve seen since I’ve been here in Knox is the revolution in technology,” said Cronk. “I think that the computerization and technological changes in schools has really taken off and it’s going to continue into the future.”
Mr. Cronk has a lot of positive memories to take with him from Knox Middle School and he highlights a couple of those.
“Our Academic Spell Bowl team won the very first State Championship that Knox has ever won and I was so happy for those kids. I will always remember the work that went into and paid off with bringing Chicago Shakespeare Starke County. I remember just the joy of seeing kids go outside the first day I was here for recess which was something that hadn’t been done before. The creation of the PTO is another great thing that’s happened here and I’ll miss seeing the kids everyday.”
Mr. Cronk leaves quite and impression on students as well.
“I’m still in touch with students that I had all 42 years. I always tried to treat kids the way I treated my own. They left the office not feeling like an awful person. That was very important to me. There’s nothing like working with Middle School kids. They’re original, open, they’ll tell you exactly what they think and they’re often funny without realizing how funny they really are. I wouldn’t have changed the direction that my career took for anything.”
Mr. Cronk’s last day is June 30th.
