Meet Ned Clooten, new DLPS Superintendent
This is Ned Clooten’s 26th year in education. He’s a Beulah, ND native and received his Bachelor’s degree from Valley City State University. He says that’s where he met the love of his life, wife Valerie. They just recently celebrated 24 years together.
He’s been a coach and a science teacher starting in Minnesota at Dilworth, but living in Fargo, commuting the nine to ten miles round trip, and doing that for three years.
Then, he said he asked himself where he would really like to go to live for a while and thought maybe Alaska would be an adventure, although he wasn’t sure what Valerie would say about that. But the Clootens moved up to Alaska where he taught for six years and started his administration education and work as Athletic Director. It was during this time that they had their two sons.
Thinking it was unfair for the boys to live so far away from their extended family, they moved back to the “Lower 48” and Ned applied to over 60 administration jobs, landing one in Milnor, ND, where he served for six more years.
It was also back in the “Lower 48” that their family expanded to three as daughter, Ella, was born there.
From Milnor the Clootens moved to Wahpeton where Ned served as principal for the last 10 years, a city very close to the same size as Devils Lake, he pointed out.
Their oldest son, Jackson, is headed to college this year at Minnesota State University Mankato, he wants to be a pilot. Second son, Noah, is the “tech” expert in the family and will be a junior in high school. Ella is going to be in the 8th grade. For the time being, Valerie does not plan to work outside the home right now.
Ned says he was excited to apply for the Devils Lake opening, he already knows some of the people here in the Devils Lake system from his work at Milnor and Wahpeton. The family is looking for a home here in Devils Lake and getting settled.
Ned says his interests include hunting and fishing and, of course, still loves sports but a priority for him is spending time with his family, “as much as possible.”
As he begins his role as superintendent he wants to have an open mind and to spend his first six to eight months here listening to the staff at the schools, and people from the community.
“I want to be patient and allow the people here to tell me about the schools, the system, and the community,” he stated.
As far as he is concerned, the Devils Lake system is starting off in much better condition that many other places in the U.S.. Oh, there are a couple of openings they still have to fill, like one third grade teacher and one fourth grade teacher and some support staff, but overall he says they are in a pretty good place to start the new school year, coming up in just over one week on Aug. 23. He is optimistic that the Governor’s new bill that was recently signed will aid the district in filling the positions that remain vacant for the time being and perhaps be a pipeline for keeping those individuals as teachers in the long run.
Clooten also reinforced the importance of social and emotional learning and said that is one reason why the school would be implementing the “Seven Mindsets” curriculum across the disciplines that addresses issues we all need to improve, like “having an attitude of gratitude,” for example.
A search for “Seven Mindsets” online states that this curriculum builds a common language – First, Everything is Possible! Second, Passion First! Third, We are connected. Fourth, 100% accountable. Fifth, Attitude of Gratitude. Sixth, Live to Give. Seventh, The time is now! We’ll look forward to learning more about this process as the school year progresses.
