He’s back! A career that started in the classroom and on the baseball diamond at Hardin Valley Academy has come full circle for Dr. Kirk Renegar as he begins his first year as head principal at the school he loves.
Adam: So first one for you, where were you born?
Dr. Renegar: Ocala, Florida.
Adam: How does one go from Ocala, Florida to Knoxville, TN.
Dr. Renegar: We were in Florida for the first few months of my life. My father was a salesman for Dayco Corporation, which made rubber hose for the gas station pumps. So they moved him to Ashland, Virginia, which is right outside of Richmond. We were there for probably two years, and then he got out of that business and became a State Farm insurance agent. My mom’s family is from Southwestern Virginia, and they had an opening in Stuart, Virginia. We moved there when I was a little bit older than three and lived there until I went off to college.
Adam: What was your high school mascot?
Dr. Renegar: A cougar; green and gold.
Adam: What sports did you play?
Dr. Renegar: I played football and baseball. And dabbled in some wrestling for about a year. Losing weight, not eating anything…it did not take!
Adam: Where did you go to college?
Dr. Renegar: Brevard College in Brevard, North Carolina.
Adam: How did Brevard get on your radar?
Dr. Renegar: They asked me to play baseball there. As fate would have it, an older brother of mine had settled in Brevard, a little town in western, North Carolina, and they had a college there. They saw me play at a showcase camp in Virginia. It just felt like it was a good fit for me from an academic and athletic perspective..
Adam: What was your major?
Dr. Renegar: History.
Adam: History education or just history?
Dr. Renegar: They didn’t even have a history education program there so it was Modern American History. I graduated with my bachelor’s in three years, and then I was looking to get into coaching. There was a small school through a connection in Northern Virginia called Shenandoah University, and they had a master’s degree program there that led to teacher licensure. I ended up going to Winchester and worked there for two years. I coached there as a graduate assistant kind of role. Got a little stipend money to pay for a little bit of rent, and that’s about it. After two years, we had grown baseball the program. I had been doing the recruiting for the baseball program, so they created a full-time position for me. I was a full-time baseball coach for two years and then I got married. And when I got married, we decided that being on the road a lot of days out of the year and doing the recruiting thing was probably not conducive to family life.
Out of the blue, a guy that I played baseball with at Brevard College, lived in Oak Ridge and his wife was coaching volleyball, at the time, in Anderson County…they had been in contact with George Ashe, who was the AD for the new school – Hardin Valley Academy. He called me and said “Man, they’re building a new high school in West Knoxville. I don’t know if they have a baseball coach, but here’s the AD’s number. You need to reach out.”
I called George and applied for the job and did an interview with Sallee Reynolds, George Ashe and Beth Ingrim. I hadn’t been to Knoxville in my life ever, and didn’t know where Hardin Valley was. But, I got the call, was offered the job and we were moved here site unseen. So that’s how I ended up at Hardin Valley Academy. I mean, just totally blind luck, quite honestly.
Adam: So how many years did you serve as a teacher and coach?
Dr. Renegar: I was here five years, from 2008 to 2013. I got a call from the assistant superintendent, at the time, of Patrick County Public Schools. He had seen my parents in the community and asked what I was doing. At that time, I had just finished up my administration license and they were looking for a baseball coach. He called me about the baseball job there and I said, “If I’m coaching baseball, I’m coaching baseball at Hardin Valley.” I did mention that I just finished my endorsement in administration and might look at that career at some point in the future. I wasn’t desperately seeking a career in administration at the time but about a month later, he called and said they were making some changes, and I went for an interview.
And honestly, at that time, we had our son who was three, and then we had just had our daughter. We were here in Knoxville, and the family was there in Virginia. We felt like it was a good situation for us at the time to raise our kids back home. So, we made the move back to Patrick County. We stayed there for five years, and it was great. At that time, we went back home to Patrick County High School, where I was an assistant principal, and I was athletic director there for two years. And then the superintendent asked me to go to Hardin Reynolds Memorial School as the principal. So, I started my first principalship there after a couple years. And it was a great, a wonderful time. And then, life and priorities kind of changed a little bit. My wife wanted to go back to school to change her career path. She had an opportunity for a fellowship here at the University of Tennessee. So, we kind of started thinking about maybe we head back this way. That led me to start looking around for a job, having conversations, and I was fortunate to land a job in Oak Ridge Schools as the principal at Robertsville Middle School, which led us back to Tennessee.
Adam: What year is this for you in education total?
Dr. Renegar: Year 16.
Adam: Okay. so you taught history, and then coached baseball. Any other sports or kind of clubs?
Dr. Renegar: I also was a lead teacher, worked with our interns from UT, and was on the core mentor team, helping out with our new teachers. But the baseball thing was a pretty much full-time gig.
Adam: And remind me, did you have teaching experience before you came here?
Dr. Renegar: No, this was my first.
Adam: So, within those first five years, you already became a lead teacher?
Dr. Renegar: Yes, I had really good mentors. I was very blessed by our department head. David Combs was my mentor as a new teacher. And he was the one that picked up the phone and asked me to think about lead teaching when that job came open.
Adam: And what year would that have been? How did that lead to administration?
Dr. Renegar: Probably 2012. I think I did lead teaching for two years. David was pivotal was a pivotal influence for me, but we had such a great department. Seth Raymon, who is still here as a teacher, and he was one of my PLC partners. Bryan Brown, who’s now the district AD was our department chair for a time. Trey Williams, who’s also still here, was in our department. They were awesome. We had so many great, great teachers, Holly Wilgus and Rebecca Furman are still here. I mean, it is just a wonderful department, a wonderful group of teachers. So it was great. And, like I said, I just think being around David, and seeing his transition from teaching to school administration, gave me a nudge in that direction. And certainly Sallee (Reynolds) and George (Ashe), as well as Jon Miller offered their support and they were super helpful with me as I was getting into all the administrative course work. Certainly Mike Wise was in that mix of people who worked here that also provided support for me as I started down the road towards school administration. They were leaders for me in developing that capacity.
Adam: Why did you choose education?
Dr. Renegar: I enjoy school. I enjoy the process of school. I enjoy each part about it and I think the teaching and the coaching for me goes hand in hand because both are teaching and both are working with people to help improve in some capacity. Obviously on the baseball field, we’re working skills, but we’re also working on team concepts. We’re working on mental toughness. We’re working on their development as a person. That’s also true as a classroom teacher. You want your impact on that child to be significant. You want them, as they walk out of your classroom, to think “Hey, I got better today.” I took a year between my time as principal at Robertsville and getting back into school administration at Central, to get into higher ed. Just thinking, I want to try to do something different. And what I found is that working with kids and working for students, that impact is something that I missed, and I wanted to be a part of again.
Adam: When you say higher ed, where was that?
Dr. Renegar: Tennessee Wesleyan University. I worked there for a year in the institutional effectiveness and research office. It was great. There were a lot of great people there, but it just didn’t fulfill that need for me to work with students and families. I get excited doing what I’m doing right now, planning for a school year and trying to be strategic in an effort to drive student learning. How are we going to do things better this year than we did last year? And in public ed it’s a process of continual improvement. How can we keep growing? How can we keep being better for our kids?
Adam: Do you have a heartwarming story?
Dr. Renegar: Honestly there have been several things over the years. When I see former players or former students, having a family, succeeding professionally, or getting a promotion. I see them getting things and moving on in their lives, and you think, “that’s pretty cool.” There are times I’ve been fortunate to be invited to weddings, or get little notes about how their time with me influenced their lives in a positive way that’s the best.
One of the kids who played here for me, I guess it was probably two or three years ago. Out of the blue I got a long, handwritten letter from his dad about how the impact that we had here helped him grow. I would argue that that particular young man had a great set of parents who did a wonderful job with him, and hopefully we helped in an auxiliary capacity.
When the announcement came out about me coming back here, I had a Facebook message from a young lady who was a former student of mine who I had for one semester her freshman year, and she’s a teacher now, and just that kind of stuff gets you.
Adam: What would you do if you weren’t in education?
Dr. Renegar: So if I wasn’t in education, I think baseball is certainly a passion of mine. I would love to do something on the player personnel, general manager side of things. That would be an alternate reality. Yeah, that would be pretty cool. Maybe one day the Braves will call me!
Adam: Who was your favorite teacher when you were a student?
Dr. Renegar: That’s a really difficult one. I’m gonna name a few names. Just teachers that I thought had a profound impact on me. Steven Henderson was my 11th, 12th grade English teacher. He was hard on me and pushed me to be better at writing. He was outstanding. Mark Gammons in math. I go back to my elementary school days. Jennifer Heath was my fourth-grade math teacher and was very demanding. And I had an opportunity to go back to Patrick County and ended up actually hiring her which was an interesting dynamic. And here’s my funny story. Ah, here’s my funny story, and I’ll tell it on Jennifer Heath. So if she’s reading this in Virginia somewhere, there you have it. So we were having a staff luncheon, a kind of potluck deal on a Friday.. and out of my window, I see a car pull up, which was odd because cars didn’t really pull there, and people didn’t get out. I was there before everybody, so I got out to come to the door, and here she comes and I mean, she looks like she’s been in a car accident. Both arms are casted. She’s got an abrasion here on her face. And I’m like, “Mrs. Heath are you okay?” And her husband was with her, and he’s carrying the pot of chili that she was supposed to bring, I don’t know that funny is the right word, but it was quite a scene. I asked what happened, and unfortunately some lights had gone out at her home, she had a nasty fall, and broke both her wrists. And I’m like, “Mrs. Heath, what are you doing here?” She said, “Well I had to bring this and, and I’m coming to work.” I said, “Do what? No, take a day.” She said “ I just need somebody to write for me, can you get a TA to write for me?” That’s the only time I’ve ever called her Jennifer, because to me, she is Mrs. Heath. I said “ You don’t seem physically well.” She goes, “The kids need to be taught”. So I said, “Okay, here we go”. And then we worked it out and scheduled it. And she did. She worked for five weeks. Five weeks, all casted up, and it took about a week before she had figured out a way to hold the marker herself. She was just as passionate about students’ achievement as anybody I’ve ever dealt with. So, she is one of my favorite teachers as a student and an administrator.
Adam: Which educators at HVA have you learned the most from? Anyone else you want to mention?
Dr. Renegar: I think the biggest obviously is a shout out for Sallee Reynolds. She hired me. She took a chance on me, and I think in this position, probably the most humbling thing is that this was her office, and that’s big for me. It adds just a little bit more meaning probably for me. I certainly want to do well, and I want our school to function at the highest level possible for the kids that are in here. But I think on a personal level I feel a little bit of responsibility towards fulfilling her vision for HVA.
Adam: Have you earned any professional awards?
Dr. Renegar: So I won Oak Ridge Principal of the Year Award. It was very humbling. It’s a great school district, and I had just an outstanding time there.
Adam: What personal accomplishment are you most proud of?
Dr. Renegar: Honestly, just trying to be a great dad to my three kids. Trying to be a great husband.
Kara Grace, she is our 4-year-old. She’s into everything and she runs the house pretty much. I don’t know necessarily where her interests lie, depending upon the day. Eileen, she’s 11 and she’s going to be in sixth grade. Whit’s 14, he’s going to be a freshman in high school. Just being with them is the biggest thing. Trying to do the right thing as a dad, which I most often don’t do. Ha ha. I try to do the right thing by my wife, and she is incredibly gracious to say the least, to put up with me.
Completing and working through the doctorate (Ed. D.) was a meaningful accomplishment. I think that was one that took some pushing from my former superintendent and the assistant superintendent in Patrick County. Dr. Sroufe and Dr. Williams both encouraged me to pursue that. That whole process couldn’t have taken place without the support of my wife, Rebecca.
Adam: What do you wish every parent knew?
Dr. Renegar: This was a really hard one. I think the main to know is that the world for your child is as big as your child wants to make it. There are so many different pathways and so many different career opportunities. I really love the academy model. When I came here it was new to me and it was a different approach to high school. I love what the district is doing with the 865 Academies perspective of opening the world to kids to see so many different career paths. One of the main reasons, in addition to my job and my wife wanting to make a career change, that brought us back here, is I saw the opportunities, when I was a teacher here at Hardin Valley for career pathways for kids that, to be quite honest, are not as present in every high school in the country. I think part of our responsibility as a school is to make sure that parents are aware of just how many different opportunities there are for their kids. Because school has changed tremendously in the past 10 years, particularly in the past 20 years. So when you’re talking about parents coming in and understanding how many different pathways and curriculum approaches there are, we’ve got so many things to offer kids. So I think just making sure they understand that in these last four years of their public education, how can we prepare them for that endgame in the most effective way, and just making sure that we’re doing a great job of communicating with them.
Adam: For the parents of your students to some degree, maybe a large degree, this is not the high school they went to.
Dr. Renegar: Absolutely! Education is just a different process. The pathways of post-secondary opportunities are so vast. The landscape is so vast for kids at times, I think they also can be somewhat intimidating. You see it as a great opportunity, but it also can be overwhelming in some ways. So I think trying to work with that, and making sure that parents are aware that it’s okay for your kids to have a natural interest in these areas. How can we work together and try to help them pursue that? What can we provide them connections and make sure that they are prepared for life after Hardin Valley Academy?
Adam: What do you wish every student knew?
Dr. Renegar: Really and truly, the exact same thing. Your opportunities, the world is much bigger than what you currently know. I think of growing up in Patrick County. It was a great place and I had a great education. I had teachers that impacted me in a very positive way, But understanding how large the world really was, I didn’t understand the different opportunities. I didn’t understand the career pathways. I was fortunate last year to work at Central. I think about the power of the 865 Academy model and what we’re trying to do. We were able to go to Tombras marketing agency as teachers. I was blown away, totally blown away by the different careers that are inside this agency! How these people got to these positions, the skill sets they needed. It really opened my eyes. I think for kids to know if you have an interest in this area, you might be able to monetize this.
Adam: It doesn’t need to be, but it speaks to an every student approach for life beyond Hardin Valley because there are ways, traditional pathways that are going to work for lots of people, but as you get to know your students and pick up on different things to help create those opportunities that could send them off to the best life.
Dr. Renegar: Yes. Absolutely.
Adam: What’s the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher?
Dr. Renegar: I think that ability to connect with every single student and make sure that they know that kid. They’re able to connect with that kid, they’re able to develop that relationship, they’re able to push that child academically, and really set a high standard for every single kid in that classroom. And that’s a challenge, that’s a heck of a thing to do. You have a classroom with typically 30 kids, with 30 very widely different personalities, different skill sets, and different interests. But to individually develop that relationship, know that child, and want to have an impact on that child in a positive way is kind of that separator for me. I think probably, when you ask “Who are your favorite teachers”, they’re the ones that are personally connected with you. Those are the ones that I remember. Those are the ones that made a difference for me. I learned things in a lot of different classrooms, with a lot of very good teachers. I’ve got great respect for them, but the ones that when asked the question, “who are your favorite teachers?” It’s that connection piece that’s key.
Adam: What improvement would you most like to see made to public education?
Dr. Renegar: I think having the ability to be flexible and dynamic with curriculum programming. When it comes to meeting those student needs and those student interests that we talked about…if the end game is to prepare a child for society in the workforce, if that’s what we’re trying to do, and we’re living in the 21st century where the job market is changing at a very fast pace. I can remember saying to our graduates, the kids that are in seventh grade, their jobs haven’t been invented yet. I think that trend will continue and we need to be able to adapt quickly in public education.
Adam: What hobbies do you have?
Dr. Renegar: So I like to play golf when I can. I really enjoy watching sports, and going to the movies when there’s a good movie out to go watch.
Adam: What’s a good way for a student or a parent to spoil you?
Dr. Renegar: Love, love, love my sports teams. Love the Atlanta Braves and Virginia Tech Hokies, New York Giants. Anything, anything along those lines is always good. I’ll lose golf balls left and right, so I can always use more. Ha ha
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