Hanover assistant superintendent leaving for Seine River School Division

Hanover School Division assistant superintendent Colin Campbell is leaving his post later this month and joining the Seine River School Division as its new superintendent.

“I’m looking forward to an opportunity in that school division and looking forward to building relationships with a new school board (and) getting to know the communities really excite me,” said Campbell.

The outgoing superintendent spent 19 years with Hanover School division, first as a teacher with Mitchell Elementary School teaching Grade 4 students, which he remembers fondly.

“I remember going home a number of times thinking, ‘Wow, I get paid to do this job.’ I absolutely loved that work. I loved my job and I loved working with the students. My dream, that I still hold to this day, is that I want every kid to just jump out of bed excited to come to school every day.”

Campbell also said he measured his success with his students if they talked about this class with their parents.

“I’ve kind of held that close to me. I remember my first year a couple of parents during parent teacher interviews mentioning their child’s excitement and being in the class – not just me being their teacher, but being in the class – and those first few years as a teacher were amazing times that I had and I absolutely loved my job.”

Campbell went on to become vice-principal at Woodlawn School where he encouraged bringing fun into school administration. He would dress up as Captain Woodlawn with a cape  during assemblies bringing laughter to the student body.

“What I feel like students learned was you can still respect authority and smile and have fun. And the principal’s office and the principal shouldn’t be a scary place to be and a scary person to speak to they can be someone you can count on and trust as well.”

After Woodlawn Campbell became principal at Elmdale School. He still brought the Captain out and he built close ties to the teachers and students at the small school. After Elmdale he became assistant superintendent at Hanover School Division, a position he has held for seven years.

He said some of the challenges he faced during his time as a lead administrator are going through the COVID epidemic and how that affected the school division from 2020 to 2022 and the educational assistant strike in 2023.

“(COVID) was a challenging time and then you go through a strike which was very challenging because there’s human beings that…have jobs and they’re tough negotiations to work through and tough to lead,” said Campbell.

“Leadership to me is a responsibility. It’s a responsibility to look after the people that you lead and help them be the best that they can be at their job,” he said.

Campbell’s last day is Nov. 27.