By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph School Superintendent Gabe Edgar will retire at the end of the coming school year.
Edgar informed the Board of Education about his decision during an executive session following its meeting Wednesday night.
Edgar, who is 51, says he will be leaving public education for opportunities in the private sector.
“Public education’s been my life for a long time and I’m to the point where my years of service plus my age adds together to be 80 and out, which gets me to a full public school retirement,” Edgar tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “And I just felt like it was time.”
Edgar served as Marceline school superintendent for 11 years before moving to St. Joseph to become Director of Finance for the St. Joseph School District, beginning with the 2018-19 school year. Edgar moved up to Assistant Superintendent of Business and Operations the following school year. He became superintendent in 2022 when Doug Van Zyl moved on.
Edgar doesn’t expect much to change in his final year as superintendent and though he is leaving, he has work to do in his final year.
“One thing that I did promise to the Board of Education, there’s a long-range plan that we’ve been discussing over several months. I promised them that that would be my number one goal, to make sure that that’s a seamless process,” Edgar says. “Because that’s a big deal; the two high school model, the four middle school model. We’re making a lot of progress on that. So, I think that’s the number one priority.”
Edgar says another priority is to continue the push for big change within the district, to try different approaches. If they don’t work, Edgar says they will try other approaches. He says students need to make better academic progress and the district needs to better tailor its curriculum to the students’ needs. Discipline also needs to be emphasized, because rowdy classrooms contribute to teachers leaving the profession.
Edgar sites as successes putting the district’s finances on sound footing as an assistant superintendent and expansion of Hillyard Technical Center as superintendent.
A search for his replacement will begin soon and Edgar says community relations needs to be a top priority in the search for his successor.
“And I say that because of all of the struggles that the public education system has had here in St. Joe,” Edgar says. “I really think the next person needs to be somebody that can relate to the community.”
Edgar's retirement is effective June 30th, 2025.
The St. Joseph Board of Education will announce the search process for the new superintendent later.
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