Three new administrative staff have come aboard the Poplar Bluff R-I district ahead of the new school year: Assistant High School Principal Jason Dowd, Assistant Director of Special Education Jamie Busch and Transportation Director Jon McKinney.
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Poplar Bluff High School welcomes new assistant principal Dowd, an educator, administrator and advocate.
Dowd is a native of Poplar Bluff who graduated from Three Rivers College, Southeast Missouri State and Arkansas State, after which he spent 12 years in the Children’s Division of Butler County. He has been involved with the Poplar Bluff High School Graduation Center since its inception in 2009.
He is also coming off 15 years working as an educator at Mark Twain Alternative School and two years as a junior high assistant principal.
“I’ve always had a passion for working with kids,” he said. “That’s what I’ve basically done my entire life. That’s what I love doing.”
Dowd had nothing but praise for Mark Twain.
“I think there’s a lot of good people working with some of our more at-risk kids ... Because those kids get swept under the rug a lot,” he explained, adding his new role is another opportunity to ensure every youth can succeed.
Having worked in administration before, Dowd felt this was a good time to return to it. The position was “a great opportunity” and he looks forward to serving the PBHS student body and working alongside other administrators.
“I’m excited to help assist our staff, developing strategies, hopefully, to help some of these kids,” he said.
Dowd is a lifelong Poplar Bluff resident. His wife Melissa is chief deputy juvenile officer at the Poplar Bluff Juvenile Office. They have three teenage and adult children: Drew, McKenzie and Samantha.
To Dowd, his family also includes his fellow school staff.
“I feel like some of those people are family, I’ve known them so long. I’m just excited to get going, to get started with them. I’m excited to work for Valerie (Ivy), I’ve known her a long time and I respect her as an educator,” he said.
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Busch is the new assistant director of special education.
She has administrative certification in K-12 Special Education plus elementary and secondary principal certifications. Busch previously taught kindergarten, second, third and fifth grades, for both regular and special education, and is working toward her EdD in leadership in teaching and learning.
Most recently she was the special education process coordinator in Fredericktown, she said, which gave her the skills and motivation to advance.
“I’ve been pursuing my education in administration and I have been a special education process coordinator for seven years, so I was ready,” she explained. “As a special education process coordinator, you’re already kind of doing a lot of administrative responsibilities, and I was just ready to build my resumé.”
Those responsibilities included writing Individualized Education Plans (IEP) and student evaluations, as well as filling in for the principal. She worked with parents, other area schools and the Division of Family Services.
Busch joined the special education field after seeing her son struggle with ADHD in school and working with his teachers to help him succeed.
“My own child, he was never in special education, but he struggled as a child with ADHD. And he struggled many years in education ... I knew I wanted to do something more for students that struggled,” she said.
Today, she carries that motivation forward as she settles in at R-I.
“My goals are just to get acclimated with the district and my new positions ... And to make it grow, help it grow, as the district would like to see it grow.”
Busch and her husband live in Poplar Bluff and have three adult children residing in Valles Mines and St. Louis.
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McKinney is Poplar Bluff’s new transportation director. He comes to the R-I district from Kennett High School, where he served as principal. He was also a principal and transportation director in East Carter R-II and a school administrator at elementary and secondary levels in other districts. Altogether, he has racked up 23 years in education. Moving forward, he plans to use his experience to address long-term struggles and incorporate new technology into the district’s system.
“We have struggled in years past, especially the last year, being short on drivers. We’ve made good progress, actually, in hiring drivers this month,” he noted.
He and Superintendent Dr. Scott Dill are adding more digital resources to the Mules toolbox.
McKinney said when he first interviewed with Dill for the job, “He was looking to do a lot of things differently, add technology to this department, which we are incorporating for this school year.”
These include TransFinder, which automatically incorporates new student addresses into bus routes, and the CalAmp Here Comes The Bus app for parents. The latter is a bus tracking app that notifies parents when the bus is nearby, and when their child disembarks.
“That’s something that we’ll be just piloting this fall and pushing out to the district very soon,” McKinney said.
McKinney lives in the Fairdealing area.