Joe Price has dedicated his career to education and continues that path as the new superintendent of the Somers-Lakeside School District.

“I worked in education all of my life. It’s just what I really enjoy. There are a lot of challenges, but you always feel like it’s a challenge worth the effort to make our schools the best they can be,” Price, 59, said.

Price previously worked as executive director of regional cooperative educational service agency that provided specialized services for students and professional development for teachers and administrators in 31 Wisconsin school districts.

“One of my main personal roles there was that I trained principals and superintendents in how to do teacher evaluations and principal evaluations,” Price said.

He sees this experience as invaluable in leading the school district.

“I see my job as a superintendent as providing the support and creating the conditions that allow my principals and teachers to do the best job that they can do,” he said. “The biggest factor in student success is the quality of instruction that they get and what our teachers provide for them. And we need to know that teachers are provided with the support that they need — the kind of professional development that they need in order to be at their most effective.”

Prior to the executive director position, Price spent 12 years as superintendent of Iola-Scandinavia Schools, a kindergarten- through 12th-grade district with an enrollment of approximately 750 students.

“One of the things that attracted me most to Somers-Lakeside was that this is a very similar district in terms of size,” Price said. “You have a nice group of teachers that enjoy working together and really enjoy working with their students.”

Somers-Lakeside School District has an enrollment of more than 520 students, and at one point considered sending between 160 and 200 middle school students to Kalispell.

The school board ultimately decided to retain its middle-school students, based on results from an online community survey, which was encouraging to Price.

“I think in this size of school district ,we have the opportunity to do a more personalized education for our students. Nobody gets lost in the crowd in a district this size — teachers really know their students well and can adjust their instruction to meet student needs,” Price said.

Price has also worked as a middle/high school principal and high school assistant principal. He started his educational career as a psychology and social studies teacher.

“What I missed most was not being in a building with students and teachers where learning was taking place, so I’m really happy coming back to a school district,” Price said.

School facilities also have a part to play in education. After years of rejected levy requests, Somers-Lakeside voters approved one in 2015 that provides $185,000 annually to cover operation and maintenance. Price agreed that he saw the levy passage as a good sign the community support its schools.

“We’re taking care of maintenance needs that have accumulated over the years, for instance, we’re replacing the HVAC systems in the gym area of the school. We’ve updated bathrooms in both buildings this year. We redid carpet we’re redoing playground equipment at the elementary school,” Price said.

Price said he would like to form a facility planning committee to assess facility needs.

What Price would like to tackle straightaway is connecting with the community.

“One of the things I want to do in create good communications between school and community ... I don’t just want it to be a newsletter that we send out, but create opportunities for the community to send in information as well,” he said.

While Price had applied for other positions in Montana and Colorado, all it took for Price and his wife Laura to set their sights on Northwest Montana was a train trip to the Flathead Valley five years ago.

“It’s just an extraordinary place,” said Price who loves fly fishing, kayaking, hiking and biking. “It reached a point in my career and my personal life where it was a good time to make this move.”

Price is now gearing up for the first day of school Aug. 31.

“Once school starts I’m really anxious to get to know our teachers and students and to observe the process of education here,” Price said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.