Gilmore finds right job at right place as Green Forest superintendent

David Gilmore had a desire for a while to become a superintendent.

While serving as principal of Eureka Springs High School, Gilmore knew he wanted to take the next step in his educational career and applied for various superintendent jobs around the state. For one reason or another, however, none of those opportunities panned out.

“I started applying in different places … and my wife was a little apprehensive about it, thinking she might have to move,” Gilmore said. “We both love Carroll County and have family up here and we didn’t want to do that. But, it was whatever was right for my career and my eventual retirement and everything, I wanted to get a superintendent job.”

Gilmore’s dream scenario came to fruition when longtime Green Forest superintendent Matt Summers announced he was retiring in Arkansas and taking over a district in Missouri.

“I’m a firm believer that God puts you where He needs you and where He wants you,” Gilmore said. “And, you know, I didn’t get some of those other jobs around the state. Then, this job came open and I feel like it was a God thing for me and that’s where I needed to be.”

When school resumes Tuesday, Jan. 7, Gilmore will be entering his second semester at helm of the Green Forest district. His familiarity with school districts in Carroll County, having now worked in all three, has been a big boost in the first half of the school year.

“It’s going great,” Gilmore said of the first semester. “I’ve been on a huge learning curve, but I’ve had some great local support between Mr. Powell and Mr. Pruitt from Eureka and Berryville. And I also have a mentor superintendent who was assigned to me, the Yellville-Summit superintendent. So I’ve got some great support. Our co-op in this area is a huge support to us as well. I’ve really enjoyed it.

“I’ve been extremely happy being in Carroll County, getting to stay at home and be a part of this Carroll County community as well, because we have great schools across this area. So, I’m just pleased to have had a chance to work in all three of them. They all have their strengths and they’re all great places to be, for sure.”

But the key is that Green Forest, like the other districts where he’s worked, is in Carroll County, which certainly made his wife happy.

“For sure,” Gilmore said with a laugh. “She’s a happy lady not having to move. That certainly makes things better at home.”

GOALS DEVELOPED, CONTINUING

Gilmore said in addition to all the support from his superintendent peers, the students and staff in the Green Forest district have been a key to a successful introduction to his new position.

“I’ve enjoyed being in Green Forest and getting to know the kids,” he said. “The kids are so polite. They’re so good. I’m so impressed with our students. And then the staff is doing a fantastic job. There were huge changes this year between administration and just some changes within the state on how they do things, and the staff has done extremely well taking to those changes and doing a really good job with it, working toward doing whatever is best for our kids. So, I’ve been extremely impressed with them.

“Here recently I’ve been going around, kind of doing grade level meetings. I’ve gotten to about half of the school district at this time. I’ve met with fourth through eighth grade and just kind of talked a little bit about my vision for the district for them, and where we’re at with the curriculum and things like that. I thought they received that very well, and I think they’re moving in the right direction on that. A lot of our teachers are doing a lot of horizontal and vertical alignment with the standards right now and planning together and showing some really good teamwork. So, I’m really impressed with those things. I think those things are going to have huge dividends for our school.

“I’m having a blast with it. Some things that we do need to be looking towards in the district is expansion and some facilities, which that’s a very difficult process. But, we’re doing our best to try to meet the needs of our students. And I’m just really enjoying everything.”

Many goals were set going into the school year and that will continue during the second semester, Gilmore said, especially with some valuable grants the district has received.

“I want to continue strong and try to meet as many goals that we started the year with and then keep planning toward next year,” he said. “… We received an additional $48,000 that we’re going to continue to use to contract with the group, the Bailey Group, who was doing our high-impact tutoring. They’re also doing another grant with us locally called the ‘Communities of Practice Grant.’

“With that grant, the representatives from the Bailey Group, the highly trained educational consultants, they came in and kind of went around to different classrooms across the district for five different days this first semester. They looked for strengths and weaknesses.

“We compiled that and talked about it as an admin team and made a plan for the second semester. The representatives will then come back and offer professional development and even go into classrooms and coach up teachers to help them with instructional strategies. With that additional grant funding that we received, we’re going to use that to continue our work throughout the summer and then even into next school year.”

A key piece of that will be around English language work with students, Gilmore said.

“I was able to get an additional 32 days with the Bailey Group, so their consultants are going to come back with some very highly trained English language learners,” he said. “That’s something very appealing to myself and teachers across our district. We’re going to make sure that our teachers are going to get some professional development with strategies working with English language learners so that they have more tools to pull from when they’re working with our students. I think this will be very beneficial to the district.”

Gilmore said he joined students and staff in having some important time off for the holidays, but is also excited to get back in 2025 resuming what they started at the beginning of the school year.

“We’re going to come back recharged,” he said. “We’re going to come back and do our best for the kids the rest of the year.”