Saco welcomes Sundby as new Superintendent

This time last year, the new Saco School Superintendent Wade Sundby was starting another year of teaching middle school math at Plentywood High School.

Sundby is a Glasgow native who graduated from Glasgow High School in 1994. From there Sundby chose to stay on the Hi-Line as he attended Montana State University Northern in Havre.

He graduated from MSU Northern with a Bachelor's in Elementary Education.

After graduation, Sundby and Brenna, his wife of seventeen years, moved to Gallup, N.M., where the couple taught at the local school.

"It wasn't a fit for us," Sundby said. "So we moved back to Montana."

Sundby was then hired at Hinsdale Schools to teach fifth and sixth grade for two years.

After that the couple moved to Absarokee, where Sundby taught middle school Montana history, geography while coaching football, basketball and track & field for ten years.

After his ten year run at Absarokee Schools, Sundby moved to Plentywood, where he taught middle school math and coached track for the past five years.

Though coaching has been a big part of his career, Sundby has no interest in coaching in any aspect at this time.

"It's not needed," Sundby said. "We have a great staff of coaches. With the co-op between Whitewater, Saco and Hinsdale, we are able to obtain coaches within all three of our schools."

While at Plentywood, Sundby applied for the Superintendent position in Saco as former Saco Schools Superintendent Gordon Hahn was nearing the end of his eight year run.

Sundby knew since he first started in education that he wanted to become a superintendent, and as he continued throughout graduate school, he found even more reason to push towards his goal.

"I always thought that I would want to be a principal, superintendent somewhere," Sundby said. "It was just the last year when I started my master's degree in educational leadership. Through that, you visit with colleagues and they continually promote you and encourage you to become a superintendent, school principal and become that leader."

He hopes that by taking on his new position he can help to push students and the school towards success.

As of last June, Sundby finished earning his Master's Degree in Educational Leadership at Rocky Mountain College. He started at Saco School on July 5.

As far as the direction of Saco Schools goes, Sundby hopes to continue to push the school's motto.

"Our mission in our school is 'Education with tradition and technology,'" Sundby said. "So we're going to continue to provide our students and teachers with innovative ways of education, so that our students are ready to be successful in the next step of their career once they graduate Saco School."

Sundby will continue the school's one-to-one technology program, where every student depending on age is provided an iPad or laptop that they hold onto throughout the whole school year.

"They are logging in, they are doing their homework assignments and utilizing that," Sundby said. "That's something that not a lot of schools have the capability to do."

The one-to-one technology program wasn't a shocker to Sundby, who knew about the program through word of mouth.

"For us and our teachers and students, it's a great way to utilize all of the information that's available to us through technology," Sundby said. "It's not shocking, it's encouraging, and it's exciting that we have this capability, we have this avenue for our staff and students."

As the school year starts, his wife Brenna will continue to commute to work at the Plentywood School as she continues to earn her master's degree. After completion she will also move to teach at the Saco School.

"I look forward to the school year, meeting the families in our community and to start the correspondence with them," Sundby said. "I already know a lot of folks around here so I just want to reconnect with those folks and develop a working relationship with them and help our school to continue to be as successful as we can in these upcoming years."

Sundby continued to say he was excited and ready to go.