LPS administrators announce retirement plans

February 2, 2023

Each year, school and district administrators who plan to retire at the end of the school year announce their intentions in February. Lincoln Public Schools congratulates the following LPS administrators on their upcoming retirements, effective June 30, 2023, and thank them for their years of dedicated service to our students and families.

School administrators

Mark Armstrong, athletic director at Southwest High School
Mark Armstrong served student-athletes at Southwest High School for 10 years as the athletic director. In his 37 years in education, Armstrong has been an athletic director in Nebraska for 28 years working at Kearney High School and Holdrege High School. Armstrong also taught for nine years at Bellevue West High School.

In 2020, Armstrong was honored with the prestigious Award of Merit by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators in recognition of outstanding leadership and personal commitment to the values of interscholastic athletics.

Wendy Badje, principal at Rousseau Elementary School
Wendy Badje started her educational career in Omaha in 1980. Throughout her 43-year career, she has been a third-grade teacher, a physical education teacher, a coordinator and principal. At LPS, Badje taught PE at Prescott Elementary School for approximately seven years before becoming a coordinator at Hill Elementary School for approximately four years. She then served as a coordinator at Kahoa for 13 years before being named the principal at Rousseau Elementary. Badje has been the principal at Rousseau for 11 years.

Kurt Glathar, principal at The Career Academy
Kurt Glathar began his education career at Beatrice High School as a teacher and coach in 1985. He served in administrator positions at various school districts from 1988 until 2004 when he joined LPS as the principal at Northeast High School until 2018. Glathar was then the principal of the Science Focus and the Arts and Humanities Focus programs for two years before being named the principal at TCA in 2020. 

Laura Runge, principal at Yankee Hill Education Center
Laura Runge was named the Yankee Hill Education Center principal in 2021. Prior to that, she served as an associate principal at Southwest High School. Runge’s 33 years in education also included teaching special education from 1989 to 2012 in various schools, including Belmont Elementary School, Culler Middle School and Lincoln East High School. In addition, she served as assistant special education coordinator at Lincoln North Star High School from 2012 to 2013 and special education coordinator at Lefler Middle School from 2013 to 2018. 

Kelly Schrad, principal at Goodrich Middle School
Kelly Schrad has served as the principal at Goodrich Middle School for the last 10 years. Her educational journey spans 38 years, all of them in LPS middle schools. Schrad began as a social studies teacher at Dawes Middle School before becoming an associate principal. She was also an associate principal at Pound for nine years before being named the principal at Lefler middle school in 2004.

District administrators

Leslie Eastman, director of ESU 18 Assessment and Evaluation
Leslie Eastman has served Lincoln Public Schools and ESU18 in Assessment and Evaluation since 1996. She was an assessment specialist until 2004 when Eastman was named to the director position. Prior to her work at LPS, Eastman was the director of assessment for the Kansas City Missouri School District, and an assistant professor in educational psychology for the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Linda Hix, director of Federal Programs
Linda Hix has served the students and families of LPS as the director of Federal Programs since 2014. She kicked off her education career at Wegner Middle School in Boys Town as a teacher and then a principal until 1995 when she moved to Waverly. There she served as an elementary principal until being named Pershing Elementary principal in 1998. Hix was the principal at Scott Middle School from 2002-2009 until she was selected to open Schoo Middle School located in the Fallbrook neighborhood in north Lincoln. After three years at Schoo, Hix moved into the supervisor of secondary personnel services position working in the LPS HR department before taking over the role in Federal Programs in 2014. 

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