Fort Madison Superintendent Dr. Erin Slater said goodbye to the graduating Class of 2025 Saturday morning in her final address to students as superintendent of the Fort Madison Community School District.
The Slater tenure was peppered with issues both personal and professional, but no one can take anything away from the progress of the facilities of the district under Slater’s leadership.
That point was accentuated by the 70 degree temperatures in the Hound Dome Saturday afternoon during commencement exercises. In past years, that would’ve been a sweaty hour.
Being a public educator in the current climate can’t be easy and leading the way would probably be even more taxing. Slater was named a finalist for the Superintendent of the Year for 2025 by the School Administrators of Iowa earlier this year. The award ultimately went to Darwin Lehmann of Central Springs and Forest City, but as Slater said of the nomination, it does expand the footprint of the Fort Madison Community School District across the state.
Slater is being replaced by former Fort Madison teacher Mike Wolter who takes over in July. Slater is headed to Tennessee to be the superintendent of the Johnson City School District.
Under her leadership since 2016, the district has closed both of its outdated elementary schools and consolidated the district into two contemporary facilities. After several failed referendums to build a new elementary school, Slater forged ahead with a committee of dedicated parents and community members to find a solution despite a minority of district voters who kept saying no to new construction.
Those referendums require a supermajority, and the district had a simple majority in most of their efforts to borrow funds to build a new building. What they got was essentially a new building added to the former junior high. Now with all students PreK-6 at the Bluff Road facility and all 7th-12th graders at the expanded Jr./Sr. High, the district has modernized learning facilities.
Slater never stopped working toward the goal of modernizing teaching methods and facilities in the district. That’s a big wagon to pull and she can now drop the ropes and head to Tennessee. I was on the community committee that interviewed Slater when she came here from Illinois without superintendent experience. She distanced herself from the other candidates in short order. After getting the job, she quickly became part of the community through volunteer service in several organizations and was always willing to share of her time at forums and events.
Pen City Current was not shy about pointing out the taxpayers were paying for vacation time for Slater that was tied to her salary. You either take vacation or don’t. As a public employee you shouldn’t expect taxpayers to pay you extra for days you were already getting paid for. However, in the same breath, Slater’s salary was appropriate for the position and a lot of people hollered about that. But if we want to attract top-shelf candidates to the area, we need to have an attractive pay and benefits package and that’s just the way things are. With the state not-so-quietly moving toward regionalization, which can only mean consolidated schools at some point, we have to be strong candidates for regional locations. Not to be disingenuous to the taxpayers, with that salary range and attractive candidates, a lot should be expected.
I’ve had three public school teachers in my family and my respect for the public education system won’t wain. The perseverance of our efforts as a news organization, however, may have dinged the relationship and it’s our sincerest hope that Mr. Wolter has a mindset of transparency and a good working relationship. Lately that relationship has been strained again. We’re looking forward to a fresh start.
Writing about things that people would prefer you not write about it isn’t fun. But it’s part of what we do. And if we didn’t do it, would the people who want to know feel you’re abandoning them? Yeah. I’ve heard that already.
One of the tenets of journalism is that just because it may not be comfortable for an agency or organization in the public arena, we don’t stop writing. News is news. If it looks bad, it just looks bad. If we can write in a positive fashion and keep everyone in the most positive light possible, we do that, but that can only be accomplished with open communication and a willingness to engage for the better good.
That doesn’t always happen and when we push for that we are sometimes shaded as being part of the problem. We’re not. We’re just here doing what we do when we can in the best way we know how.
Dr. Slater has always been reactive to our requests for information. In the last several years it’s become an email exchange instead of conversations around issues. It is what it is and we were thankful to still have communication from the district.
School Board President Josh Wykert has been engaging and forthcoming when and where he can and we appreciate that, too, The happenings of the district including finances, facilities, administration, test scores, athletics, and everything else is for public consumption. It can’t just be Facebook because that’s not objective reporting, it’s entirely subjective. It can be very informative, but sometimes questions need asked and answered.
And at end of the day, we’re all human, and compassion and humanity should be a priority in all our lives. To that end Dr. Slater never ducked an issue and we respect her for that and we wish her and her family the very best in the Volunteer State - but that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.
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