Superintendent Plans To Lead By Example Plummer/Worley School Administrator Says Status As Native American Gives Him Added Perspective

Wayne Trottier is a leader, nothing more, nothing less.

Granted, he is the Plummer/Worley School District’s first Native American superintendent. Yet this is no special license, he says, it just lends him more perspective.

“A leader is anyone who has to make a decision in their life,” Trottier said Tuesday morning, relaxed and calm - more like a tenured employee than a recent hire.

The board hired Trottier in April to replace retiring superintendent George Asan. Trottier now oversees a three-school system where half the students are Indian. Many local residents have said a Native American superintendent will give Indian students a role model.

“It’s not just me as superintendent,” Trottier said. “It’s Billy in the kitchen, Carl in transportation. It’s Mom and Dad.”

“What does being Native American bring to this?” he asked rhetorically. “It brings added perspective, added value. If you want to typify superintendents, put them in a funnel. I jumped out of that funnel a long time ago.”

Trottier vows to learn the students’ names - all 600. He plans to get in the classroom, dirtying his hands with science projects and reading to the younger children. This is Trottier’s homework, his preparation to make a difference.

“I’m not invisible; don’t expect me to be invisible,” Trottier said, shaking his finger to emphasize the point.

Trottier also wants to renovate the district’s schools, possibly building a new facility, and work on improving student behavior.

Trottier is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in South and North Dakota and the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe in the northern part of North Dakota.

Only 5 percent of school superintendents nationwide belong to minority groups, according to Education Week magazine.

But the district stresses that Trottier was not hired simply because he’s Indian.

“I’m really excited about Wayne,” said Connie Johnson, a school board trustee from DeSmet.“I think he’s a great leader for us. He has some real leadership qualities that will be pretty helpful for our district.”

Trottier is both intense and jolly.

He laughs when thinking back to his first school administration job. The task was to merge two North Dakota schools. He was “eager, fresh and full of new theory,” not realizing the job included firing some teachers. He now knows he can make tough decisions.

His success isn’t limited to his profession. Trottier feels he’s successful as a person and is raising a successful family. It’s impossible to separate the two, he said. That’s why he strives to stay fit - a habit from his basketball and football days - practice good nutrition and act the same in the office chair as in the lounge chair.

“There is one thing every individual has control over, and that is their attitude,” Trottier said. “If I can role model anything that people can pick up, it is my attitude and that there is no division between my personal life and professional life.”

Starting school at age 4, Trottier graduated from high school at 16 and began playing scholarship basketball at St. Mary College in Bismarck, N.D. He finished his elementary education degree at the University of South Dakota in Grand Forks.

Knowing he lacked maturity, Trottier enrolled in the service, throwing the five military branches in a hat and drawing the Army.

He landed in the military police as a plain-clothes investigator in North Germany, working on drug enforcement.

At age 24, mature and married to an Italian named Paola, he entered the classroom, but soon left to become an administrator. He eventually finished his doctorate, concentrating on how to assess, analyze and diagnose leadership skills of individuals.

After 19 years in education, Trottier took a hiatus last year. He left the Ojibwa Tribal School on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation for White Thunder Inc., a company that teaches leadership development to private and governmental organizations.

Trottier said he can tweak leadership skills to apply to teaching, parenting and any daily activity.

He’s a huge supporter of volunteerism, coaching Special Olympics, and believes communities must make schools a focal point.

This district has come a long way. Trottier said he can take it further.

Improving buildings, possibly new constructions, is one focus. Another is improving the learning environment. He believes in a partial return to the basics, saying schools need simple things such as behavioral management. Trottier doesn’t use the word discipline, and after attending Catholic missionary schools, he knows about corporal punishment.

“I’m not comfortable with the term discipline,” he said. “It has a condescending feeling about it.”

If youth are taught leadership, their behavior will improve, he said. They need it from a young age, not just high school. He wants to be proud of his students, just like his own two children. The youngest, Wayne, 16, will be a junior at Lakeside High School.

His wife, Paola, just took a job teaching business and vocational education. She’s moving to Plummer in August after finishing her master’s degree at the University of North Dakota.

“I have high expectations, but the high expectations I had for myself,” Trottier said of his new district.

Erica Curless can be reached at (208) 765-7136 or by e-mail at ericac@spokesman.com.