Michigan’s Martin Public Schools Superintendent Dr. David Harnish puts in 90-hour work weeks.
But he wasn’t crafting school policy, mentoring teachers, or working with parents.
In fact, those long hours didn’t even take place during the school year. They took place over the summer. Harnish was putting in the long hours to save his district some money.
Now we’ve all heard of teachers buying school supplies and paying for things for students out of their own pockets.
But Harnish put in some serious elbow grease to make sure his school had the improvements it needed.
Many school districts these days struggle with finding the money they need to build safe schools and provide proper education for students.
But voters in Harnish’s school district passed an $18 million bond to fund upgrades to their school building.
And those upgrades were made.
However, the school was still lacking. What good are new upgrades if the school still looks shoddy because of its desperate need of a paint job. A paint job that would have cost $150,000.
And some of the classrooms hadn’t been painted in almost 17 years. But Harnish would rather the $150,000 go where it was most needed than put it into the building.
“That 150,000 would have been taken away from kids or taken away from the potential for us to take care of our staff the way we need to take care of them,” Harnish told FOX 17.
Still, the work needed to get done.
So, Harish rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
“We would have just maybe done a room here or there and I would have been retired by the time this got done,” Harnish said.
Harnish spent the entire summer painting the entire school. But he didn’t do it all on his own.
He hired some students to help him out.
“It’s neat to be able to get some of these seniors who are graduating to do some summer work too,” Harnish explained.
Some of the seniors saw it as a chance to leave their mark at the school that helped them to become to people they are today.
“I painted my name in a certain spot,” said one senior. “Nobody will find it, hopefully.”
In addition to beautifying the school and giving students and teachers a learning environment they could be proud of, he’s also teaching students a great lesson: sometimes if you want something done, you’re better off doing it yourself.
Many superintendents are career superintendents.
They move from school to school growing their salary and pensions. It’s rare to see one who truly cares about his students and staff and would put in back-breaking work and hours to serve them. Kudos to Dr. Harnish.
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