Schools

Apple Valley's Westview Elementary Principal to Retire With Fond Memories

Karen Toomey, Westview's principal for the past 16 years, will retire to spend more time with her father and pursue more hobbies.

There are several moments Karen Toomey remembers when she thinks back on her 16 years as principal of Apple Valley’s .

There’s the memory of students racing down the hallway as part of the Thanksgiving Gobble, Gobble, Give fundraiser. There’s the time she braved 20-below temperatures to stand on the school roof sporting shorts during Westview’s read-a-thon. She’s even taken a pie in the face at the school’s annual carnival.

But mostly, she’ll remember her daily interactions with the people who make up the Westview community.

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“The thing I’m most proud of are the relationships we’ve formed with kids,” Toomey said.

Toomey will retire from her position at the end of this school year—a difficult decision, she said—to spend more time with her father and balance her life with hobbies she’d like to pursue. She’s an avid hiker, and likes to bike, quilt and do craft projects.

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A new principal will be introduced to staff at the end of May or beginning of June.

Toomey is “really about kids and teachers and their families,” said Gwen Krueger, an instructional assistant and reading recovery specialist who has worked with Toomey during her entire tenure at Westview. Her decisions are based on what is best for students, Krueger said.

While that number of students is only about half of what it was when Toomey came to Westview—dropping from 850 to 450—that population is now more diverse, Toomey said.

Other changes in her time as principal include adding several initiatives, like Head Start and a Communication Interaction Program, which works with students with high-functioning autism.

But many qualities in the people Toomey has worked and grown with have remained consistent.

“The quality of teaching I don’t think has changed,” Toomey said. “The community supporting education has not changed.”

Toomey communicates well with staff and has always encouraged staff development, said Lori Anger, a kindergarten teacher Toomey helped hire three years ago. She's ever-present in the school and even at the many after-school events, Anger said.

“She’s just so positive,” Anger said. “She is always smiling, always welcoming … I just told her, ‘I wish I could work with you longer.’ ”

“She really gives people a lot of input, but lets teachers have a lot of input into school decisions,” Krueger said.

Challenges Toomey has encountered as Westview’s principal include meeting increasingly diverse needs, and striking a balance between keeping programs that work well and adding new things that could be even better, she said.

But of the four states in which she’s taught or been principal (she came to District 196 after holding a principal job in Hawaii), Minnesota has the best reputation for schools, she said.

“Can we get better? Absolutely,” she said. “And we owe it to our kids to get better.”

Toomey said she would have liked to see through a literacy and response-to-intervention program that’s in the works, as well as see how students do on this year’s state tests. Though she’ll no longer be principal, she said she’ll be around to help at Westview in any capacity she’s wanted.

“I’m not walking away,” she said. “I’m too invested in this school.”

Another thing about which Toomey is certain: She’ll continue working with kids in some capacity.

“It’s in my blood,” she said.


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