Article by: Kevin Corvo, The Columbus Dispatch
Kevin Corvo, This Week
Just like shiny chrome and a 409-horsepower engine excited prior generations, a generation of today’s youngsters have been expressing their awe at the 140,000-square-foot, $42.3 million Eversole Run Middle School, which will open Aug. 18 to about 770 students.
Dublin City Schools begins its new academic year on the same date.
Students and parents had the opportunity to kick the tires and look under the hood of Dublin’s fifth middle school at an open house Aug. 4 at 9015 Gardenia Drive in the Jerome Village neighborhood in Jerome Township north of Dublin.
“The hallways are so big. It won’t be as squishy,” said 12-year-old Janessa Sahoo, who will be an eighth-grader at Eversole Run.
Last year, Sahoo attended Sells Middle School.
Kevin Corvo, This Week
“It has great lockers, too,” she said.
Sara Kulkarni, 13, also an eight-grader, said she appreciated the building’s air conditioning. Kulkarni attended Grizzell Middle School last year.
Sisters Isabel and Alexandra Westfall, who attended Karrer Middle School last year, also were excited.
Isabel, 13, is an eighth-grader, and Alexandra, 11, is a seventh-grader.
“I’m excited to be in a new (middle) school,” said Isabel, as she and Alexandra signed a school banner before entering with their father, Earl Westfall.
Kevin Corvo, This Week
For other students, Eversole Run, which will enroll students in grades 6-8, it will be their first experience at a middle school.
Nan Starkoff, 11, attended Wyandot Elementary School last year.
She and her twin brother, Matty, are new middle school students.
“It’s so much bigger (than Wyandot),” Nan said.
Her parents, Brandon and Amy Starkoff, were equally impressed.
“It is the most beautiful school I have ever seen, well-thought out and well-designed,” Amy Starkoff said.
“It’s fantastic. I am really impressed,” said Brandon Starkoff, who also had the opportunity to meet the principal of Eversole Run Middle School, Kyle Gibson, for whom he offered equal praise.
Gibson, 42, is as new to Dublin City Schools as Eversole Run Middle School.
He arrived in March to begin the opening of the new building.
“It’s an exciting opportunity to open a new school (and) to be a part of a district as phenomenal as Dublin,” said Gibson, who most recently was an assistant principal and athletics director at Franklin Heights High School in the South-Western City School District for four years.
He knows central Ohio well. From 2008-16, he was an administrator in Columbus City Schools, and he is a graduate of Bishop Hartley High School in Columbus. He and his wife, Jaclyn, have three children and live in Galena.
As principal of Eversole Run, Gibson has had a hand in everything from selecting some of the staff members at the building to choosing the details in the appearance of the school’s mascot, a golden eagle.
He also developed the school’s “SOAR core values” for students and staff members alike: service-minded, ownership, acceptance and respect.
“In all we do, we will model the SOAR core values, in our school and in our community,” Gibson said.
Gibson is not the only new administrator in Dublin as the district embarks on the 2021-22 school year.
Superintendent John Marschhausen is beginning his first full year at the helm of Ohio’s 10th-largest school district with 16,300 students.
Marschhausen came to Dublin from neighboring Hilliard City Schools, where he had served as superintendent since 2013.
Other administrative changes at the start of the school year include new principals at Coffman High School, Davis Middle School and Indian Run Elementary School.
Matt Parrill is the new principal at Coffman, effective Aug. 1.
Parrill succeeds Mike Ulring, who took a position at the district’s central office as director of principal leadership, said district spokesman Doug Baker.
Parrill had been an assistant principal at Coffman since 2015.
Jaime Stewart is the new principal at Davis. Stewart most recently was an assistant principal at Jerome High School.
Read the original article HERE.
