Dustin Dick Leaves Education

From the Capital-Journal:

The timing and opportunity both needed to be right to lure Topeka West principal and USD 501 lead principal Dustin Dick out of education.

The chance to join the family insurance business in Rossville, after helping West and 501 navigate through an unprecedented spring, convinced Dick that now was the time to make that move.

“We’ve talked about this for a long time,” Dick said. “In fact, if I go back to my first year teaching in 2002, my dad (Randy) kind of talked about it and I almost gave up teaching and joined the business, but I decided it wasn’t the right time.

“It came up all the time. Dad would say, ‘Hey, some day I want you to come.’ He kind of always wanted to have all his kids there, and now this just kind of seemed like maybe the time was right to do something a little different.”

Dick said that having the spring completely disrupted by COVID-19 played into his decision.

“I think not seeing kids every day and teachers every day here through the spring maybe made it a little easier to decide to walk away,” he said. “When you’re a high school principal, you always have something to be at and somewhere to go and something you can do and it just consumes everything you do. That’s just who you are.

“That just kind of stopped for the spring and the spring’s usually really busy, so I had a lot of time to think about it and thought, ‘You know, maybe it’s time.’ It just kind of seemed like the time was right.”

Dick, 41, will join his father, brother Derek, sister Melissa Horagan and stepmom Karen in the family’s multi-faceted insurance business.

“It’s kind of an all-in-one employee benefit kind of thing, health insurance and benefits,” Dick said.

But while Dick is excited about the future, he knows he’ll miss his career in education, which has included stints at Highland Park as a teacher, assistant principal and associate principal as well as time at St. Marys, Eisenhower Middle School and Seaman.

Dick has been principal at West for six years and USD 501′s lead principal for three years, in addition to being in charge of district athletics.

“I like what I do,” he said. “I’ve got a good job, I’ve got a good place to work. It’s just kind of worked out all the way. There’s been jobs that I thought I wanted that I didn’t get and jobs that I got that I wasn’t completely sure I wanted and everything has worked out really well for me.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better career in education. I’ve been blessed. It’s been a really good career and Topeka’s been great.”

Dick’s final day at West will be June 30, and associate principal Colin Cathey has been named interim principal.

Although education is going through an extremely tough time because of the coronavirus pandemic, Dick knows it will survive and thrive.

“Whether it’s something with the budget or the legislature, it seems like there’s always something in education that’s challenging, but one way or another it all works out really well,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for almost 20 years and every time we thought, ‘Oh, this will be the worst thing ever,’ it all works out.

“This year we had something happen to us that nobody had ever experienced before and all the administrators and the teachers came together and figured things out and made learning happen for kids. We pulled it off and kids learned and they finished classes and they earned credits and we still graduated kids. Everybody finds a way and we make it work.”