T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — New East Marshall Superintendent Kevin Seney poses for a photo in front of the district’s administration building in Gilman on Monday afternoon. Seney, who served as high school principal at Grinnell from 2008 to 2024 before spending a year as the superintendent at Sumner-Fredericksburg, officially started in his position on July 1.

GILMAN — Taking on the superintendency at the East Marshall Community School District is something of a homecoming for Kevin Seney, who served as the high school principal at Grinnell for 16 years before spending the last year as superintendent at Sumner-Fredericksburg after completing his educational doctorate through Drake University. Seney, who grew up in Decorah and Elkader, is excited to return to the area and lead a district he feels has a strong future ahead of it.

Because of his wife’s job with the Iowa Department of Education and their three daughters attending Grinnell schools, Seney spent his weekdays up north and came back to Grinnell on the weekends, but with his new job primarily based out of his office in Gilman, he’ll now be much closer to home on a daily basis.

“(East Marshall) has always been a really small, stronger school that’s been surrounded by bigger schools. So you’ve got South Tama, Newton, Marshalltown, Grinnell all in its contiguous borders, but yet, East Marshall has continued to thrive even in that environment where they attract good people. I know they have good teacher retention as far as staff retention,” he said. “Some of their best teachers are the ones that stay year after year after year because of that loyalty (and) that purpose they have in serving the district, which is great. Financially, East Marshall is in pretty good shape. A lot of the issues that we have as far as school finances come from enrollment, so I think that one of the things that I feel like I can maybe bring to the table is trying to do some things to bring back some of that enrollment from those open enrolled kids out or going back to increasing our open enrolled kids in by offering some different programs and really telling our story in a different way as far as some good things that we’re doing here.”

Seney, who officially started on July 1 and replaces Tony Ryan, said some of his other primary focuses will include student and staff culture, transparency behind the decision making process and facilities — which is a particularly hot topic on the heels of a failed $13.5 million bond referendum last November that would have closed the current middle school in Gilman and financed expansions at the elementary school in Laurel and the high school in Le Grand to accommodate students in grades 5-8.

“We, at Sumner-Fredericksburg, had the exact same issues that we’re talking about here. We’ve got aging facilities. We’ve got infrastructure that’s poor. Looking at enrollment, we have to decrease our physical footprint here in the district,” Seney said. “There, it was four buildings to two. Here, it’s (a question of) are we going from four buildings to three, four buildings to two. I’m counting the district (administration) building (in Gilman).”

The bond issue, which would have required a 60 percent supermajority to pass, garnered just 53 percent support from district voters. Seney intends to reconvene with the facilities committee that was assembled before last November’s bond vote to assess the plans, determine why it fell short and determine the appropriate path forward.

“Was it the issue of closing the building in Gilman? Was it the $2.70 (per $1,000 of valuation) tax raise? Did they feel like we hadn’t done proper maintenance and upkeep to the buildings? What are some things that we can attack and address in our next building plan? Because we’ve got to hit the ground running because there’s a lot of paperwork that we have to do as far as the language on the petition, the language on the bond, and then getting out and educating our stakeholders about what this bond is actually going to give for the money,” he said.

On July 1, his first official day on the job, Seney held a work session with the board and an architect from FEH, and a consensus emerged to proceed with another bond issue on the November 2025 ballot. Now, the work to make it happen is underway.

Aside from those challenges he is already tackling, Seney is excited to be back in a role where he can be a more actively involved father to his three daughters while also maintaining a strong presence and visibility at East Marshall.

“Just being here more locally and having more access to the district from home, I think, will be outstanding,” he said. “With the people that we have here and the commitment to kids in this area, they really want to do the absolute best that they can for the kids. And we really want to have programs that other districts have that maybe we’re losing kids for. So I think, with the willingness of people to wear a lot of hats in small districts, I think that’s huge, and East Marshall is full of people like that. I’m just kind of chomping at the bit to get to meet them all and put faces with names and to kind of discover their whys. What’s your why? What’s your purpose? Why are you still here? Why are you doing what you do? I think that, to me, is really important.”

He is also excited about the close proximity of Marshalltown Community College (MCC) and the access to Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs for East Marshall students.

“I think there are just a lot of opportunities here that I think that we can capitalize on that I’m just excited to be a part of,” Seney said.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.