3 D-2 employees follow Miles to Texas
A few Harrison School District 2 employees are following outgoing Superintendent Mike Miles to Texas.
An administrator and an assistant principal will make the move to Dallas Independent School District. A third employee has already headed east.
The departures are not causing any disruptions, said Harrison school board President Deborah Hendrix. Miles had said early on to the school board that there were people he wanted to take with him.
No other departures are expected, she said.
Former D-2 Spokeswoman Jennifer Sprague started work in Dallas on Friday Hendrix said. Sprague will run communications for the Dallas district and make $185,000, The Dallas Morning News reported Tuesday.
Chief of Operations Kevin Smelker will make about $220,000 a year in Dallas, according to the Morning News. He was planning to retire from D-2, so a replacement was already arranged, Hendrix said.
Nicole Niewinski, Sierra High School assistant principal, is also making the move. Hendrix did not know her salary or her new role, but thought it had something to do with leadership academies and staff training.
Both Smelker and Niewinski start work on July 1, Miles’ first official day at Dallas ISD.
The Dallas district has 157,000 students, 221 schools and a budget of $1.5 billion. It has had financial problems, and like Harrison it has a large population of students who are impoverished and at risk of dropping out. Harrison has about 11,000 students and a $80 million budget.
Miles, who has served at Harrison for six years, has said he is taking on the job in the nation’s 14th-largest school district because it’s a chance to reach more students and more broadly impact education.





