Stowell principal moving to new position within district

In her eight years as principal as Stowell Elementary School, Maria Mundle’s roots have grown deep in the South Side community. That is why her decision to apply for the Hannibal public school district’s new position of director of curriculum and instruction was so difficult to do.
“I’m not ashamed to tell you that I cried two days after I turned in my application. For two days afterward I just thought, ‘Oh, no,’” said Mundle. “The kids, families and staff are the best. It was really difficult.”
After being selected to fill the new job, Mundle views it as not so much saying “good-bye” to Stowell as having the opportunity to say “hello” in other schools.
“What I think is exciting about my new job is that I’ll be able to be out and about in all of our buildings and schools. I’m not going to be too far away and I will be here frequently, so that’s nice,” she said. “Then I can check on my Stowell kids when they’re in middle school and high school, and still it’s an opportunity to work with all of the same people and more.”
Superintendent Jill Janes says Mundle’s background makes her a good fit for the new position.
“Maria is knowledgeable about both elementary and secondary curriculum because of her background of having taught at the middle school and being an elementary principal. That’s important because we want pre-K through 12 to have a knowledgeable person to really work with teachers and support them in their curriculum,” she said.
Initially, Mundle sees herself having lots of conversations with curriculum leaders throughout the district “just getting a feel for where they are, where their buildings are headed, where we are going as a school district and pulling all those pieces together so we’re all headed in the same direction as one big team.”
Mundle won’t be stopping there.
“A large part of my job I think will be contact with teachers and building administrators, and working on professional development which will help to drive our instruction,” she said. “The other piece of that is looking at data, whether it’s our MAP data and how our students are achieving or looking at our own assessments that we do within our district, and helping formulate where do we go from here and what do we want to do.”
As a result of a shift in responsibilities within the district the position of director of curriculum and instruction was created.
“With the retirement of Linda Clark, we decided we would shift some of the duties that Linda had to Susan Johnson (assistant superintendent) and then we were able to shift some of Susan’s duties with curriculum and instruction to another person, so we’re hiring a director of curriculum and instruction in place of a director of food services,” said Janes.