Change isn’t easy. And Tiffany Koehn has seen a lot of it in the six years she has worked as an administrator for Iola schools.
Koehn came to Iola in 2018 to serve as Jefferson Elementary School’s principal, then transitioned to serve as assistant principal at the new Iola Elementary School when it opened in the fall of 2022. She’s been part of the administrative team that introduced new programs aimed at collaboration among staff and early interventions for students.
Those efforts have earned Koehn the honor of Area 2 Elementary Assistant Principal of the Year, an award given by the Kansas Principals Association. She will be in the running for the state award, which will be selected April 1. If she were to receive that award, she would advance to a national contest.
“I’ve always loved my job, but I feel like it gets better as time goes by,” Koehn said. “We’re here to do what’s best for the kids and support each other because if we don’t, that’s when the job becomes difficult.”
KOEHN grew up in Basehor and always knew she wanted to be a teacher. In high school, she decided her ultimate goal was to be a principal.
She graduated from the University of Kansas and taught fourth grade for five years at Cherryvale, which is near her husband’s hometown of Independence. During her second year of teaching, she started working on her master’s degree in education administration at Pittsburg State University.
Initially, though, Koehn didn’t talk about her dreams of becoming a principal.
She recalls her first year student teaching at Cherryvale, where she wondered if she was on the right track. One of the district administrators at the time was Tonya Smedley, who, coincidentally, previously taught at Iola and now works at the Greenbush education cooperative.
“At one of my observation meetings, she didn’t know I wanted to be a principal. She said she saw a lot of herself in me and could see me becoming a principal one day,” Koehn said.
She admitted that was her goal, so Smedley and other administrators sent her to a leadership academy and gave her tools and resources to achieve her dream.
They were just the start of a long line of administrators who helped Koehn along the way, like Greenbush’s Randy Corns who served as her mentor during her first year as Jefferson’s principal.
“Being a new principal and implementing (new programs) was extremely difficult. He became that safe space to talk and get another viewpoint,” she said.
At USD 257, she found support from Superintendent Stacey Fager, curriculum director Jenna Higginbotham and IES Principal Andy Gottlob.
“I know I can go to them to talk things through and get the resources and support I need,” she said. “I feel really blessed to have had so many people who helped me get here.”
THAT SUPPORT especially came in handy in her time at Jefferson.
