By Trey Gilbert
Government and economics teacher Mr. Ethan Crenshaw has been teaching dual credit at Delta High School now for the past three school years, but Friday, Sept. 17 was his final day. He is taking a new job, an opportunity that he could not pass up.
Crenshaw said he will be the research director of the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board, which is a group that oversees all teacher contracts in the state.
His job entails collecting teacher salary data and reporting those findings to the Indiana state legislature from his new office in Indianapolis. He will get the benefit of being able to work at home three days a week.
Mr. Crenshaw has had his school administration license for a while.
“I want to be able to have a statewide impact,” he said.
This new job would be ¨the natural next step” in his career since it will allow him to use his graduate school degree from Indiana University-Bloomington.
He said he is excited to be able to work with state lawmakers to help make the best decisions for students, teachers and schools.
“I will miss the consistency and being able to work with students,” Crenshaw said, referring to what he will miss about being a teacher.
Though later on in his life he said he isn’t opposed to returning to teaching because he still loves teaching. With his experience teaching dual credit, he thinks he’ll be able to return to the classroom when he wants.
While teaching at Delta he has also been working on his doctorate degree at IU for educational leadership, which he plans to apply to his new role.
He gained this opportunity from a former professor he had at IU. She knew that he had done research for the job, so she alerted him for this opportunity.
“It’s been incredible to be a part of the department and be on staff here,” he said. “And I loved every second of it, but it’s also been incredibly difficult because of Covid and going virtually on and off and having to constantly adapt to new positions. I’ve learned to stay flexible, be adaptable and be gracious.”