Full circle: Forest Park grad named Forest Park principal
Jamie Schnieders graduated from Forest Park High School in 1997. Now, 19 years later, Jamie (Schnieders) Pund has come full circle.
Dr. Jamie Pund was named the new Forest Park principal during a brief special meeting of the Southeast Dubois County School Corporation Board of Trustees Monday evening.
Pund graduated from Forest Park High School in 1997 and earned her BA from Purdue in 2001. For the next five years, she was a sixth grade math teacher for Jonathan Alder Schools in Plain City, Ohio.
She received a master of education in the art of teaching degree from Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan, in 2005 and, from 2007-2012, served as director of teaching and learning for Jonathan Alder Schools. She was assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction from 2012-13 and, until 2015, was principal of Canaan Middle School with the same Ohio school district.
But, she and her husband, Mark, also a Ferdinand native, wanted to come home to raise their children.
“We were lucky enough that the [assistant principal] post opened up,” Pund says with a smile.
And now, one short year later, she has been named principal.
She will begin her duties when current principal Jim Mehling retires this summer.
Mark Pund is now in product design at MasterBrand Cabinets. Their twins, Haley and Davin, are both second graders at Ferdinand Elementary.
In December, Pund received her doctorate of education in leadership studies from Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio, and with that becomes the first Southeast Dubois County School Corporation administrator to hold a doctorate.
She also holds licenses in elementary grades 1-8, administrative specialist: curriculum, instruction and professional development, as well as her superintendent’s license.
She is eager to get started. “I’m looking forward to working with the amazing students and great staff,” she enthuses. “I never envisioned being back here as an administrator, but this is where I grew up — the community I love. I want to help us continue to grow.”
“It’s my passion.”
