Cloverdale Superintendent Greg Linton ready to transition into new role

While many of his fellow Superintendents are counting down the days to the end of the school year and preparing for another year, Cloverdale Community Schools Superintendent Greg Linton is counting down for another reason. 

After a dozen years as the leader of the district, Linton will retire as superintendent and transition into overseeing the Cloverdale Distance Learning Academy. 

"I will miss being around students and our staff every day. Being a small school district, you get to know each other real well, and those types of relationships and being around the students will probably be one of the things I miss the most come August," Linton said. 

Growing the Cloverdale Distance Learning Academy is very important to Linton. 

"That is a big operation and takes a lot of work, and would, probably, be a difficult job for a new superintendent to step into. I was, obviously, interested and wanted to stay involved in that. We started our online school in 2020 with 174 kids and I am proud to say we are the third largest online vendor in the state at this point with just under 2,200 students. This last year, we had the highest test scores of any virtual school in the state. We have worked hard to provide a successful alternative for students who aren't interested or unable to attend a brick and mortar school. It is a critical piece for Cloverdale, whether it is financial or just continue to expand our footprint in the state," said Linton, who said he will also do other professional jobs and enjoy family time and travel. 

The district recently hired Dr. Stacy Mason from Vigo County to serve as the new superintendent. 

"I told her she is coming from a larger district to a much smaller district, and I told her I thought it would be a breath of fresh air. My advice to her was to enjoy it. We have good people to work with, and many of the challenges she will have to work with may be similar but there won't be nearly as many of them and enjoy working in what is a very good school district. There is plenty of work left to do in Cloverdale. We have challenges we face, but I think she brings a skill set and comes from a different perspective than I did. I am excited about the places she can take Cloverdale and what she brings to the table. I think the hiring of Stacy was a great hire by the district," Linton said. 

With the calendar winding down on the 2025-26 school year, Linton admits it has been a very "profitable and successful" school year. 

"I feel like we have a very good year, and it has been profitable and successful on a lot of fronts. We have not had any issues with staffing. We were able to fulfill all of our staffing positions. Our enrollment had gone up by 81 students, and that was really good and glad to see that kind of growth. We added four pre-k programs a few years ago, and that has gone well. The athletic teams are doing well," Linton said. 

The veteran educator said the increase in students results from several factors. 

"We have seen some families move in, but, predominantly, families today if they live close to your district and you are providing programs they are interested in, they will find a way to get their child to your district. We hoped if we provided a good program early for kids and they got to know Cloverdale, they would like and appreciate what we were doing and would stay. Most of our growth to this point has been pre-k, kindergarten and first grade," he acknowledged. 

The growth of the Cloverdale Distance Learning Academy is the result of Cloverdale paying attention to the needs of students and families. 

"We are paying attention to the opportunities in front of us. You can't take on an online school and partnership like we did without good school board support. We had many long discussions prior to stepping off into this space and there were a lot of unknowns. We didn't know how it would go, but that support for a superintendent to take a risk and know it was a safe space to do it, was huge. We have had challenges along the way, but we have learned and continued to change to get better. We want to follow the law and provide quality education opportunities for students. The things we have learned in the online have helped us with the brick and mortar as well. We provide free field trips to all of our students. We have tried to integrate curriculum and other benefits and combine the two together for our kids," Linton said. 

In addition to growth, Cloverdale High School has seen various upgrades and is currently building a new auxiliary gymnasium. 

"We are very excited to get that new facility up. That type of facility will really help enhance not only our high school, middle school and elementary programs at Cloverdale, but also our CCYL. We see them using it a lot, and other community events. The way the structure will be built, we can keep it separate from the rest of the high school, so it will be very community friendly," Linton said. 

In addition, he hopes it will be a vital "recruiting" tool for his district. 

"We do feel like students and athletes will be able to hold practices earlier in the day, get home earlier in the night. There was no downside to doing it. We have four gyms we already use in the district, but, again, we live in a day and age where we want to make sure our facilities are in good shape, are attractive and it is a place students want to be," Linton said. 

Linton and Cloverdale have seen several educational changes recently, thanks in part to actions from the Indiana General Assembly.

"I think part of the troubling part is we don't know the complete impact just yet. We continue to get more and more information from the local education associations on what they anticipate the impact of lost revenue to be, but some of those measures don't come out until 2028. In Cloverdale's situation, we receive about $250 thousand in local income taxes every year, and that is just going to go away. A year ago or two years ago, we lost our textbook reimbursement money. There were years we would spend four or five hundred thousand dollars in textbooks. It is a reminder of how important it is to maintain a responsible budget with staffing and all of your other expenditures. Our head of maintenance has been working with Duke on how to control temperatures during the winter and summer and find ways to save money. We have worked hard to make sure we don't add more positions than what we need to make sure we provide a quality education for students. I think there are always a lot of challenges that come our way, but Cloverdale is no different than any other place. We find a way to meet those challenges and continue to move forward. The only thing you can really control is your expenditures," Linton said. 

Additionally, recent changes in how students earn a high school diploma emphasize work-based learning and increase accountability in state testing. 

"I think some of the changes with the high school diploma are good. I like going towards the work based learning, and I think for our students, specifically, that provides a unique opportunity for those kids. We have more and more students leaving high school and going into the workforce, so I think those types of pathways will provide students 

with opportunities they need to be successful. I think that is a good change for Indiana. On the financial side, we are going to have to wait and see. Over the last three budgets, the state has probably added more money to the foundation than they have in several of the past previous years. It probably just kept up with inflation, but it is better than it had been. It remains tight, and I think depending on Senate Bill 1 and the impact it has, it could make it even tighter than it already is. I'll be interested to see if there are tweaks to that law. The other thing I think that bodes well for states is Indiana's revenue projections over the last three or four quarters have been higher than expected," Linton said. 

When students arrive back to school in August, they will do so with a new law pertaining to the use of cell phones in the classroom. 

Earlier this month, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed a bill into law that bans cell phone use in schools from bell to bell, with the hope of helping students focus, supporting teachers and improving classroom environments. There will be exceptions for emergencies, students with individualized Education Programs or 504 plans, as well as medical needs. 

Linton said the feedback he has received has been "surprising."

"To be honest, I have been surprised. I thought we would have a revolt. That has not really been the case. Some of the students I have talked with have had a sigh of relief that there will be a break from social media. I think the increased restrictions where students can't have them on them and they have to be secured, I have started to hear concerns about what if there is an emergency. I think that is a valid concern. Generally speaking, it has been received well and better than I thought. I think when you are in a small school setting, it goes a little easier than if you are in a 1,500-plus student high school. We have changed our policy to the new letter of the law, and we will get started in August and see how it goes," Linton said.