On Wednesday, Susan Climer will walk through the front door of Eisenhower High School, bringing the school back to having two assistant principals after having only one this past year.
Climer will likely help handle student discipline, Assistant Superintendent Joe Garza said. She also might assist in special education and the arts.
Garza said the addition of a second assistant Eisenhower principal leaves only one more task to complete to finish the administrative realignment. The district now needs one more person to serve as a part-time assistant principal at Poplar Creek Elementary School and a part-time gifted and talented coordinator, Garza said. Currently the director of pupil services is overseeing the gifted and talented program, he said, but the administration wants to focus more attention on that area.
Climer is a native of Cleveland, Ga., but has lived in several places. She comes to New Berlin from Athens, Ohio, a city of about 22,000 that is the home of Ohio University, which just about doubles the community's population during the school year.
She was a high school assistant principal since 2008 in Athens, and was a director of high school and middle school marching bands and teacher for 11 years before that in Athens. She also has been a band director or music teacher since 1985.
The creativity of music is a good background for the challenges of school administration today, she said.
"You have to be creative. We are being asked to do more with less, think outside the box and provide an education where the economy is not on the upturn," she said.
Climer said she likes the creative brainstorming part of administration and enjoys bringing people to the table to solve problems. The transition from music to administration has been an easy one, said Climer, who has a master's degree in educational administration from Ohio University.
"I can't wait to get to know everyone up there," she said from her home in Athens. "It's a dynamic team. I already picked up on that."
Climer and her husband, John, who has been director of bands at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee since August, have two daughters. One was just named assistant band director at Muskego High School. Their youngest is majoring in dance at a college in Vermont.
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