Not only are high school seniors graduating from Carbon School District to move on to the next chapter of their lives, Superintendent Steve Carlsen is not too far behind them to embark on his own new venture.
As of July 1, Carlsen will change locations but not titles and take the role as the new Superintendent of Box Elder School District. “You know it was a hard decision. I’ve been here six years and as I looked at it, it seemed like a good opportunity when the Box Elder job came open, it is a bigger district, there is a 11,000 students there, it’s a bump in salary. The biggest thing through this is that it’s dead center, geographically in the middle of my 14 grandchildren,” said Carlsen. This will be wonderful chance for Carlsen to enjoy his children and mostly importantly be involved with his grandchildren’s extracurricular activities, which he feels he has missed out on.
When he first arrived in 2011, he had amazing ideas and hoped to implement some positive changes throughout the district. “The game plan was to come here, hopefully build a culture of collaboration and trust and I feel like we’ve done that. I’m just really excited to, you know the next few years to talk to whomever my replacement is to see if this thing has continued. Because that’s the mark of a great leader is to see if the culture that they were a part of continues on. So that’s my goal in a few years to say, how are things going in Carbon? And they’ll say, really good, we’re going upward,” stated Carlsen. He credits this achievement to his administrators and staff at each of the schools.
It’s a bittersweet feeling for high school seniors to bid farewell but those same emotions resonate with Carlsen who will attend his last graduation ceremony for Lighthouse and Carbon High Schools. “I got into this profession 34 years ago to be with kids and being a Superintendent you deal a lot more with adults. So to go and be able to watch the successes and watch people walk across that stage and get their diploma after 13 years, throw kindergarten in there, that’s 13 years that they have been trying to accomplish this fete, so it’s a really neat thing,” said Carlsen. The staggering amount of scholarships awarded this years is unbelievable.
The school board is currently in the process of taking applications to fill the vacancy and hopes to have a replacement by mid-July. “I’ve been in six other school districts following both a coaching career years and years ago, and then an administrative career, this is my toughest leave that I’ve ever had in all those times. I even spent nine years in my own home school district up in Idaho. So I just want to thank you to the community, there is so many community members that have been really good to me besides the school community, thank you very much from the bottom of my heart,” said Carlsen.