Fort Lupton High School is in need of another principal with the resignation of Alice Sueltenfuss at the close of the year.
“Alice did voluntarily offer a resignation, and that was accepted,” Superintendent Mark Payler said. “Right now we are in the process of doing a principal search. Marcia Hester will stay on as the assistant principal, and Joe (Gutierrez) stays on as the assistant principal/athletic director.”
Payler said there are approximately 15 to 20 applicants at this point, with applications coming in from across the country.
Payler said the district accepted the resignation as offered, but noted the positive impacts Sueltenfuss had on the students.
“She was really good at making sure that the kids were recognized, for things like attendance and GPA,” Payler said. “Really good at awards ceremonies. She really did get into bully-proofing the school, and in fact, we had fewer incidents and fewer expulsions than I have seen in my nine years here. She was instrumental in putting together the CSU Alliance program, which allows our kids, if the qualify, to go to CSU and get introduced to the university. There are even some scholarships that are available.”
The alliance created opportunities for some kids that may not have known they existed, or were available to them.
“It really helps them take that next step,” Payler said. “If college and university was not an option, this did open their eyes to that option, and was very much family based.”
Sueltenfuss served as an administrator in Weld Re-8 since 2001. From 2001 to 2003, she was dean of students at Fort Lupton High School. During the 2004-05 school year, she was assistant principal at Fort Lupton Middle School.
Since 2005, she was assistant principal at Fort Lupton High School. Sueltenfuss worked for 18 years as a teacher and another 10 as an administrator. She taught special education at the elementary and middle school levels in Texas for five years, and high school special education and ninth-grade language arts for two years prior to moving to Colorado.
In Colorado, she taught special education for 11 years at the middle level in the Brighton and the Boulder Valley Schools.
Contact Staff Writer Gene Sears at gsears@metrowestnewspapers.com.