By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
Bryan City School Superintendent Mark Rairigh has been quite busy recently in what he describes as “The Hiring Season,” especially with several changes within the district’s school administrative staff.
The recent retirement of longtime high school principal Stephen Alspaugh, who had spent the last 18 years in the district, has started a domino effect, with several administrative and personnel changes taking place.
One of the changes, according to Rairigh, is that Alspaugh’s current administrative position will now become a combined high school/middle school principal position with current athletic director Nathan Keel, who was approved at the May school board meeting effective Aug. 1, 2026. Keel will now be overseeing the entire high school/middle school building.
“We’re doing all of this without adding any positions, basically we’re restructuring roles and titles,” said the superintendent.
Rairigh also restructured another position, that of Karen Meister, who is retiring as a high school guidance counselor. Her position is being restructured into a high school assistant principal’s position that will serve students in grades 9-12.
“Many of her duties and responsibilities were administrative in nature, so we’re just shifting the title of that role to fit the roles and duties that was already pretty much overseen,” he said.
Taking over the responsibilities of the newly created grades 9-12 assistant principal’s position is Matt Kaullen, who is currently a high school science teacher. His new job takes effect on Aug. 1, 2026.
Current Middle School Principal Brian Arnold will continue to maintain and oversee grades 6-8, but he is going through a title restructure, and his title is going to be changed to assistant principal for grades 6-8.
“We’re unique with us being all under one roof for grades 6-12, so what this will put us into now is a model of one principal for grades 6-12, and two assistants,” Rairigh said.
With Keel moving into the high school/middle school principal’s role, his position as the athletic director is now in the second round of the interview process.
“We had 30 applicants and narrowed it down to six that we had interviewed and now we’re down to the final two individuals,” said Rairigh.
“We have a committee of administrators and varsity coaches, and they will make the recommendation hopefully by the end of the week.”
Rairigh said that with all the internal fills, what happens is one internal position gets filled by another internal employee and their position opens up.
“For example, Matt Kaullen is an internal employee, so we now have to fill out his science teaching position,” he added. “And if the athletic director gets filled internally then we’ll have to fill their position.”
Another important position in the district, the director of middle and high school special education, has been filled by Adam Swisher, who was formerly a school psychologist in the district. He replaces Julie Taylor, who is retiring from the position.
With all of the transition already going on within the school administrative staff, the district will be hiring a lot of teaching positions between now and the beginning of the next school year.
“Overall, with all of the retirements, we’ve already filled a fourth-grade teacher retirement internally, an elementary physical education teacher internally, a fifth-grade transfer with an outside candidate, a first-grade position internally, a fourth-grade position internally, a fifth-grade position externally,” said Rairigh. “We can expect a few more here as we continue this shakedown here.”
The district, which is going through a restructuring phase, also didn’t fill three teaching positions as well.
“Over the course of the last six years, through attrition like this (retirements and resignations) we have been able to restructure and not fill over 20 teaching positions,” said Rairigh.
“We’re saving approximately at least $2 million or more each year annually by not filling those positions. We’re able to do that because of enrollment numbers showing just a consistent slight decline which has allowed us to restructure some of our departments and programs to not fill those positions and to keep our class sizes at average size.
“Since 2000, the district has lost approximately 500 students in the last 26 years just to general enrollment decline for a variety of reasons.”