On November 28, Shorewood School District will welcome a new Director of Buildings and Grounds. The position is responsible for maintaining the physical quality of the school environment, including the interior and exterior, and ensuring standards are met. The position will be filled by Sean Strauss, who has 10 years of experience working in technical and administrative positions in other school districts. 

“I have six and a half years with Racine Unified, where I was grounds custodian and grounds engineer…then I moved to the New Berlin area and expanded to Whitnall school district where I became a lead custodian,” Strauss said. “I got the supervisor position at Pewaukee school district, and now I’m at Shorewood as the director of buildings and grounds.”

Heather Heaviland, Director of Business Services, led the hiring process and believes that Strauss’s career background will be valuable in his new position.

“Sean came from a background where he has worked in very different roles inside of school districts and developed that expertise,” Heaviland said. “We need someone who has all that technical knowledge but can also lead and manage a team, so we need someone who understands what employees need…how to think strategically and long term and manage a budget.”

Inter-staff relations are especially important in the position, as collaboration is necessary in order to accomplish the tasks the district takes on.

“This [position] manages a large staff as well, and needs to be very much aligned with what good human relations and management is as we work to have our schools clean and safe each and every day for our students, families, and community to use,” said JoAnn Sternke, District Interim Superintendent.

In order to obtain community feedback, staff members were asked for their opinion during the hiring process.

“We went through and we did a survey process, asking people for things that were important to them and that helped us form our overall hiring plan and questions to add to our evaluation strategy,” Heaviland said.

For a position as wide-reaching in the district as Director of Buildings and Grounds, a variety of skills were ideal for candidates for the job.

“This is a very important position in the district and one with a lot of breadth, meaning there needs to be strong visionary skills for innovation, for sustainability and management, and for human relations,” Sternke said.

The district was particularly searching for applicants who could bring new ideas to light and help strengthen the schools’ main goals.

“[What’s important is] making sure that they understand our mission and taking it seriously and that everyone in the district, regardless of your role, is here to make sure that we’re meeting our mission of achieving excellence and equity for all students,” Heaviland said. 

Strauss expects that the role of Director of Buildings and Grounds will have a different work environment than what he is used to, but that he will be able to take on more of a cooperative role in the well-being of the school community.

“[Being] a supervisor mainly [involved] day to day operations with staff members,” Strauss said. “This role has a broader vision of everything, where I’ll be able to go with meetings but also help the school district in going the way they want to go for the community, the students and the staff.”

As the projects for the 65 million dollar referendum for the district are coming to a close, the district is hoping to address postponed issues that have not had as much attention.

“[Strauss] has the opportunity to focus on what are all the things that have been put on the back burner because of all the referendum projects,” Heaviland said.

As Strauss will begin his responsibilities involved in the position in the coming weeks, he will be shadowing retiring director, Anthony Seidita. The district is grateful for all that Seidita has done during his 38 years working for the Shorewood community.

“[We want to] recognize everything that Mr. Seidita has done to put the district in a good place and particularly the amount of work he’s done for the referendum project, there is so much appreciation for that,” Heaviland said.

Overall, the district is prepared to guide Strauss as he transitions into the district.

“It’s always exciting to have someone new in the district and we hope he’ll be here a long time.” Heaviland said.