For Karla Wohlwend, long career ends with praise

At the end of every school year, Kirk Miller, the executive director of School Administrators of Montana, hands out awards to distinguished educators who have been cited by their own professional organizations.

The teacher of the year, administrator of the year, Indian educator of the year and so forth are honored at the annual banquet.

This year, Miller had one award that was special to him.

In February, Karla Wohlwend, the director of personnel and special education at Havre Public Schools, had won the special education administrator of the year by Montana Council for Exceptional Children.

Miller had appointed Wohlwend to the rather unique combination of jobs nearly two decades ago.

“It was an honor to recognize her for the award,” he said.

It was especially meaningful because Wohlwend will wrap up her 46-year career in public education when she retires this year.

“She has this wonderful talent of understanding the technicalities of her job while she has the ability to build relationships with people that are so key in these jobs, especially personnel,” he said.

When Miller arrived in Havre, Wohlwend was half-time principal at Devlin Elementary School and half-time director of special education.

Miller recalls seeing in Wohlwend’s talents that she had the ability to handle the unique combination of jobs that he assigned to her — personnel and special education.

Wohlwend herself admits to being a bit surprised when Miller made the offer, “but I was honored Dr. Miller thought I could do the job, so I accepted.”

She stayed in the job, loved every minute of it and become a fixture at the Robins School Administration Building. She has stayed through several superintendents.

Her final year at the school district has been marked by surprises.

When she went to Missoula to the Council for Exceptional Children’s meeting, she had no idea she was to receive the award.

Superintendent Andy Carlson, the last in a line of people she worked for at the district, suggested they go to the conference to accompany Franklin Walter, a Havre High School student who was being honored as the regional student of the year,

Since Franklin's family couldn’t attend the session, it would be good to go on a road trip and support him, he told Wohlwend.

So Wohlwend and Carlson went to Missoula. Franklin received his award, and Wohlwend thought the excitement was over. Then came the announcement that Wohlwend had won the award.

Carlson had managed to keep it from her.

“I was shocked ... and humbled,” she recalled.

Carlson praises her for his work.

“I look at her as one of my mentors,” said Carlson, who worked his way up the ranks before becoming superintendent.

He said he was amazed at how she handled her two jobs that require such different skills and talents.

Wohlwend is the only school administrator he knows who has such a unique combination of duties.

It will be difficult to find anyone to replace her in either of the jobs, he said, to say nothing of finding one person who can handle both positions.

Wohlwend looks back on her career with pride — especially how education has changed for the better.

She recalls her first day of teaching, which was also her husband’s first day of teaching.

He got paid more money, she recalled, because he was a high school teacher and she was “just elementary.”

And more important, he was a man.

Students options have increased in recent years, especially in her field of special education, she said. New federal rules make it easier for teachers and administrators to work with parents of special students and design a program aimed to help them, not just comply with federal rules.

Miller said there has been one thing constant about Wohlwend during the 20 years he has known her.

“She deeply cares about the children of the Havre Public Schools,” he said.