T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — From left to right, new Marshalltown Community School District Buildings and Grounds Director Todd Carl, Director of Student Services Anel Garza and Director of Special Education Benjamin LaConner pose for a photo outside of the administration building on Monday afternoon. Carl is a Marshalltown native and MHS graduate who spent 34 years as the plant manager at JBS, while Garza has spent almost all of her educational career with the MCSD and served as the principal at Woodbury Elementary School for the last 12 years. LaConner originally hails from Minnesota and most recently served as the principal at Samuelson Elementary School in Des Moines.

Along with new leaders at the elementary and high school levels, the Marshalltown Community School District’s (MCSD’s) central office is gaining three administrators ahead of the 2025-2026 school year — one who was previously an elementary principal, one who comes from Des Moines Public Schools and another longtime Marshalltonian joining as the buildings and grounds director after a lengthy career in the private sector with JBS.

Anel Garza, who served as the Woodbury Elementary principal from 2013 to 2025, is stepping into a new role as the MCSD’s director of student services, and Benjamin LaConner is the new director of special education. They are splitting the duties formerly held by longtime MCSD Director of Special Services Matt Cretsinger, who has accepted a position with the Iowa Department of Education. Todd Carl, on the other hand, is a Marshalltown native and Class of 1987 MHS graduate who spent 34 years as the general manager of the local JBS plant before retiring from that role two years ago and moving over to the public sector as the district’s buildings and grounds director.

“I’m excited to take on this new role. It was important to me — I’m born and raised in Marshalltown — to continue to work and live in Marshalltown. So I waited for the right opportunity, and it seemed to cross paths at the right time,” he said. “I think it’s important to not only give back but find a role that made a lot of sense for me at a personal level and a professional level. Those two things have aligned and I’ve been welcomed in this role at a really high level in a really appropriate way, and I appreciate that and I think it’s important to support the 5,000 students (and) the 900 staff members that not only go to school but work in this district. I feel a responsibility in this role and I think I can add a lot of value with the experience I have with process and people, and I’m looking forward to applying that.”

Carl will be overseeing 10 buildings and approximately a million square feet, not to mention joining at a time when the Franklin Field renovations are already well underway and the Reimagine Miller project will be commencing in the near future.

“I’m excited about that. I’m excited about offering my perspective on that and obviously being involved in those steps to take it to the finish line and give back to the community and the students who deserve what they’re about to get,” he said. “I’m very impressed. I’ve seen a lot of projects and a lot of multi-million dollar projects, and what the school district has done to align with Invision and Boyd Jones is very impressive to this point. Obviously, we’ve got a long ways to go, but it’s definitely on the right track and I’m looking forward to being part of that.”

LaConner, a native of Minnesota, comes to the MCSD with a background in bilingual education, general education and special education, and he most recently served as the principal at Samuelson Elementary School in Des Moines.

“I wanted the chance to be part of a district like Marshalltown that’s serving a lot of language learners and serving students with really high quality services. I was really impressed with just how committed the community was to the schools and how much people are proud to be from here and proud of the schools that we have. So I’m really excited to get started,” he said.

He is excited to host an “All Means All” conference in November, which focuses on collaboration between general and special education teachers to provide high quality services for students with disabilities.

“We’re taking that as our vision and kind of seeing that as our turning point in the year. We’re getting ready for it and getting things in place and then using that as a jumping off point to get as much inclusion as we can for our students so that they’re getting education with their peers in general education,” LaConner said.

LaConner feels fortunate to be joining the district at this time and continue the work with a special education task force at Lenihan and other improvement efforts at Miller and MHS.

“You can tell the teachers and the leaders are focused on getting better and not just sort of coasting in special education, and that’s really exciting,” he said.

Even before she was the principal at Woodbury, Garza spent most of her 22-year professional career with the MCSD other than a one-year hiatus to serve as an associate elementary principal in Perry. She has taught ESL, second grade and kindergarten before moving into administration. While LaConner’s role as special education director is fairly clear cut, Garza said she will oversee a variety of initiatives and programs including Social Emotional Behavioral Health (SEBH), at-risk students, attendance and the dual-language program.

Garza, in tandem with District Attendance Coordinator Ely Harris-Medina, plans to key in on chronic absenteeism this year and work with parents to ensure that their children are in school.

“With that being said, and along the lines of Social Emotional Behavioral Health, is making sure our kids feel connected and have a sense of belonging because we know that if they have a sense of belonging in their school setting, they’re more apt to attend and they’re more apt to be present, so that’s gonna be a big way that we tackle some of our chronic absenteeism,” she said.

Another goal for Garza is to spread the word that Woodbury isn’t just a dual-language elementary school — the MCSD is a dual-language district.

“The whole message that we’re trying to convey to our community of ‘All means all,’ that also includes our dual-language students in whatever language they are here with us to learn,” she said. “We have a dual-language program across the levels — elementary, Lenihan — and we’re trying to improve the dual-language program at Miller and the high school. So that’s a big undertaking as well.”

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.