‘An honor and a privilege’

Jeff Elstad has been going to school every fall for 50 years.

“I feel like when September starts, it’s going to feel so different,” he said, “but right now it feels like … I’m ready.”

The longtime educator and administrator has spent the last eight years as superintendent of Owatonna Public Schools; his last day was June 30.

He’ll miss the people he works with, “and I’m going to miss the connection I have with kids,” Elstad said, “but the good news is, I can still get my fix. I can go read to classrooms – I just get to do that on my own time.”

He and his wife, Gina Mathison Elstad, will remain in Owatonna, where they’ve lived for 25 years. They have four children, who all graduated from Owatonna High School, and one grandchild.

The daughter of a superintendent, Mathison Elstad teaches music at Owatonna Middle School.

“She has understood what it’s like to live in that role, as she watched her mother,” Elstad said, “and also as the child of a superintendent, with our own children. She’s been incredibly supportive.”

The impact of having children who attended the district wasn’t lost on him.

“It wasn’t always easy for them, either,” he said. “My kids used to joke and say, ‘I’m going to get a shirt that says, “don’t ask me about snow days.” You learn the same time I do if we’re going to get a snow day or not.’”

Still, Elstad said, he and his wife “live in this world where we were able to separate our work life from our home life. There have been times, during challenges, that she could tell I was thinking about it, but we worked really hard to maintain that balance. She understood when I needed space, and she also understood the times when she would say, ‘it’s going to be OK.’ It’s all a testament to her.”

Through the years

Originally an international business major with a goal of working overseas, Elstad needed to fulfill a humanities elective. He found himself in an early childhood special education class, which changed the trajectory of his life.

Elstad changed his major to education.

He spent several years as a speech and language pathologist for preschoolers, cementing his commitment to special education services and the needs of students. He later served as director of special education in New Prague Public Schools before heading down the path of school administration.

Elstad was assistant principal at OHS for a few years, a middle school principal in Rochester, then became superintendent of Byron Public Schools.

That’s where Owatonna School Board member Lori Weisenburger first encountered Elstad, she said during his final board meeting on June 16.

“We were at a school board invitational event,” she said, “and I watched this superintendent shepherd and surround and host his board members, and I thought, ‘wow, he knows how to take care of his board members.’

“It reminded me of a former teacher who would say, ‘every day is an interview.’ And when I look back on that moment,” Weisenburger said, “I realized that, little did I know, he was interviewing that day – because it wasn’t but a short time later that we were looking for candidates, and I’ll never forget what I observed, when nobody was really looking.”

She said Elstad “creates an energy … a lift in his work that supports everybody around him.”

He became the superintendent of OPS in 2017.

After talking about Elstad’s time in the classroom, “to this day, I think he does his best work walking the halls of our schools, interacting with students and staff,” said Board Chairman Mark Sebring.

“Jeff has a tremendous level of respect and admiration from our local business community and state legislators, all of whom he engages regularly,” he said. “I believe Jeff is a key leader in our community and his legacy will be recognized well into the future.”

Accomplishments

Several people at that school board meeting in June thanked Elstad for his role in getting a bond referendum passed in 2019 that allowed the district to build a new high school.

“It must have been thrilling and horrifying at the same time to start your job with the edict of building a new high school – and getting the community to support that,” said Brad Meier, president of the Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce, who also spoke at the June 16 school board meeting.

It was a group effort to get the bond passed, Meier said, “but I would argue that no one stood out front of the detractors more often than Superintendent Elstad, and he did it with respect and patience.

“Then, no sooner had the bond passed, than COVID hit,” he said. Elstad provided “consistent, clear communication, and was on the front line of all of that.”

So was the new high school his proudest achievement?

Elstad laughed.

“No,” he said. “It was never about the brick and mortar. The messaging for the new high school was all about what would change as the result of a new building – so my proudest achievement is bringing Career Pathways to a school that re-engages student learning through authentic and relevant experiences.”

It’s a beautiful building, Elstad agreed, “but it was the vessel to help support that goal, because the old building simply couldn’t support it. I’m proud of the building, but I’m more proud of the programming and what happens in the classrooms and inside the building.”

The investment the community made, he said, was “expanding opportunities and engaging our students so they can find a career that they love.”

He believes there is universal agreement that “we want students better prepared for the work world; I think we can differ sometimes in how we get there … but I’m really proud of the staff” in the Career Pathways movement.

Meier said the local business community is also grateful for the work Elstad has done.

“He has shown great ability to see how strong school district impacts a strong community,” Meier said, “and understood the need for workforce-related programming, a strong partnership with the local community college and how important that was to attracting development to our community here.”

But Elstad is also proud of the early stages of education in the district.

“Preparing students for those opportunities down the road starts in preschool,” Elstad said. “As a former preschool teacher, I look at that and see that a quality preschool experience sets students up for life.”

The next stage

After 50 years in education – including his own – Elstad plans to continue learning and teaching.

He plans to do some consulting with school districts, because “I see how hard it is to be a superintendent, especially in towns that just don’t have all of the supports like we do here,” he said.

“I want to provide a new perspective, a new viewpoint for superintendents,” he said, “to help and support them – to make sure they get to focus on the things that should be important to them, like students, and building programs within their districts.”

Elstad is “pretty well networked across the state because of some of the things I’ve been able to do, but I want to advocate for public education … to help (districts) build quality systems so that public education is something we can continue to rely on.”

Additionally, he will continue to be a community advocate for how to remove some of the virtual world distractions while getting kids to enjoy playing again.

“How do we as adults start to reverse the world where we’re overprotecting in the natural world, but underprotecting in the virtual world,” Elstad said.

“In schools, we have become so driven by achievement that I feel like we’ve lost our way with all of the other things school does for students,” he said, things like “teaching cooperation, teaching how to collaborate with somebody, what it’s like to be around a group of people and actually be a kind human being.”

Teaching leadership – or, more accurately, recognizing it – is also an ongoing goal.

Elstad cites educator and author Stephen Covey, who described leadership as “communicating someone’s potential so clearly that they begin to see it themselves.”

Martina Wagner, principal at the Owatonna Area Learning Center, calls it the “Elstad Legacy.”

He has told many people over the years, and will continue to do so, that “they should be in educational leadership, or if they’re in high school, that they should consider a career in education.”

Lessons learned

For a guy who once wanted to travel abroad, speaking Russian and brokering business deals – but had a backup plan of taking over his dad’s petroleum distribution company – Elstad knows that college humanities class changed his life.

“I love this community, because they trusted me,” he said.

Peers have told him that “there’s going to be a big chasm, of value,” and a week before his last day, “I’m not feeling that,” Elstad said. “I’m feeling like I can still remain connected and do the things I do – I’m just not going to be a superintendent.

“If I was in this role for the title, I might feel that way,” he allowed, “but I was never in the role for the title – so now I’m going to be Jeff, because I’ve always been just Jeff.”

He is thankful, he said at his final board meeting, “that you have selected an excellent superintendent in Dr. (Tammy) Champa, as I believe she will lead this district even higher and further in the future.”

Elstad paused several times as he addressed board members for the last time as their superintendent, often becoming emotional.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your superintendent, and I want to thank you for allowing me to serve this great school district,” he said.

“My father used to tell me to make sure that I leave a place better than I found it,” he continued, “and it’s my hope that I’ve accomplished that. It is also my sincere hope that this school district continues to put the students first, and take care of the people who work with our most precious resource, our students.

“I will forever be Owatonna proud.”