GREENFIELD — Robin LeClaire has accumulated a wealth of knowledge throughout her 27-year career in education.
Next month, she’ll bring that knowledge to the Greenfield-Central School Corporation.
On July 6, LeClaire will take over as director of student services, a role vacated by Jim Bever when he retired.
“Robin has an incredible skill set, so we are quite pleased to add her to the G-C team,” Superintendent Harold Olin said. “Her experiences as a classroom teacher, school principal and various roles with the (state department of education) made her the obvious choice for the director vacancy.”
LeClaire has spent the past three years working for the Indiana Department of Education, most recently as senior director of teaching and learning.
She was hired by the department as director of school improvement in 2018.
The role quickly expanded when she was asked to take on overseeing the teaching and learning team. Later that year, it expanded again when she began overseeing a new office of social and emotional learning.
As the program she was overseeing continued to grow, LeClaire was promoted to chief academic officer, taking over title grants, school safety, special education and innovation in leadership.
She was later promoted to her current role, directing the teaching and learning of students in pre-K through grade 12.
LeClaire started out as a teacher at Brookview Elementary School in Warren Township in 1994, where she taught for 14 years. She was then promoted to dean of students and then assistant principal, before becoming principal at Eastridge Elementary in the same township.
She spent eight years there, but sought out a position with the state in order to apply her knowledge on a broader basis.
After some transition in departmental leadership, LeClaire felt called to explore ways to narrow her focus back to helping one school system.
The role Bever left open at Greenfield-Central seemed like the perfect fit, she said, adding that she’s proud to be joining a school system with such a great reputation.
“They have a lot of really successful things happening, and a great team of people in their central office who are really dedicated to students,” she said.
Plus, she has a soft spot for Hancock County. Her in-laws live in New Palestine, where her husband Chris grew up, and her family has a number of relatives in the county.
LeClaire and her husband live in Warren Township, where she was raised by parents who were also educators.
He dad was a teacher and administrator at Warren Township for 40 years, and her mom was a teacher until transitioning into real estate after having kids.
“The thing I love about working in education is the impact it has on kids,” said LeClaire. “You’re leaving your legacy on the future.”
