Prior Lake schools' hire has a lifetime of experience

Sue Ann Gruver apparently has never gotten over being a librarian.

The incoming Prior Lake-Savage superintendent has four shelves and a file cabinet drawer of books in her office at Mahtomedi Public Schools, where she is assistant superintendent.

Any visitor to her office leaves with a book recommendation.

"Books just open doors for us," Gruver said last week. "There are so many ways to learn about everything."

Two weeks ago, the Prior Lake-Savage school board offered Gruver the job to replace Superintendent Tom Westerhaus, who is leaving at the end of the school year because a district employee fired on his recommendation was later elected to the school board.

Gruver, 60, considers her new job the capstone to a lifelong career in education. She considers all her life experiences as a teacher, principal, mother and librarian to be training for the job.

"This is taking everything I've learned across my career and wrapping it all together," she said last week. "I can't go with just part of those skills; I need them all. I need all those experiences to be the best superintendent I can be."

Gruver and her husband, Jim, are natives of Indiana. She graduated from high school in South Bend in 1965 and went to college at St. Mary's, the women's college next to the University of Notre Dame.

When she started, she didn't know what she wanted to do. She tried some education classes and "really fell in love with the kids."

"I got kind of intrigued by it all," she recalls. "It was a perfect match for me. I loved seeing their excitement every day. They come ready and eager for every single day, so that is really energizing."

She came to Minnesota after teaching in South Bend for two years when her husband got a job with Dayton's. After a 10-year break to raise her three sons and daughter, she worked as a teacher, librarian and reading resource teacher in the metro area.

But administration was already pulling at her.

"It just became apparent to me that the leadership, whether it was the principal or the curriculum leader, was really the lead teacher. You're teaching teachers," she said. "People asked me, 'Are you going to miss the classroom?' And you always leave part of your heart in the classroom. But if you're going to be an administrator, you have to. You have to love the kids."

And, according to some of her colleagues, she does.

"As a group, educators all think about the kids," said John Deir, principal of Mahtomedi High School. "Some lose focus in the middle of the battle, for a building campaign, negotiations or other things. But Sue Ann moves through that."

Deir credits Gruver with helping the high school through a complete examination of its programming. She's also helped the district through strategic planning, implemented professional development groups for teachers and updated the district's curriculum review process.

"She's so bright and student-centered," said Linda Crisman, a mentor of Gruver's, who worked with her as a principal in Minnetonka.

Crisman said she applauded Gruver's decision to pursue a superintendent job but told her to be ready for the political part of it. "She'll bring people together in ways that will serve students. She'll be quite remarkable in that way."

Global students

Gruver considers being a mother one of her job qualifications. If Prior Lake-Savage wants to prepare students for a global economy, consider this: Her children, now ages 30 to 36, live all over the world.

Libbie, the youngest, married an Australian and lives in Sydney. John, the next oldest, lives in Minnesota with his wife. Will, the second oldest, lives in Dallas with his wife, and James, the oldest, lived in London with his wife before also moving to Australia.

"It was really hard at first; you feel like you're splitting yourself," she said. "But when your kids are really happy, it's easy to have them anywhere in the world. It's better than having them miserable and two minutes away."

Gruver is amused to have grandchildren with accents. Technology helps them keep in touch. She and her husband have a digital picture frame that can be updated remotely, so they wake up in the morning to a new slew of pictures.

"We thought we were supposed to give them wings," Gruver said of her children. "We were supposed to launch them. We kind of overdid that."

Emily Johns • 952-882-9056