Sturgeon Bay Elementary Principal Retiring on a High Note

Sturgeon Bay Schools Superintendent Dan Tjernagel began advertising this month for a new principal for grades 3-5 at Sunrise Elementary to replace Brian O’Handley, who has more than 25 years’ experience in classroom and administrative positions in public education. He submitted his retirement notice in February.

“The focus is on being more of a dad and husband. That’s step number one,” O’Handley said. “And then I’m taking a little time to figure out what to do next. I’m fortunate to have a little space to think about how to contribute in a different way. 

“I’d like to volunteer a little bit more,” he said. “In the past, I’ve done work with Habitat for Humanity, but I really like tutoring for adults who are trying to learn to read, or helping people who have literacy challenges. I worked with people from Iraq when I was living in Oshkosh and helped them learn English so they could be a part of the communities they’re in.”

O’Handley taught middle school classes elsewhere in Wisconsin and then in the state of Oregon, and he taught fourth grade for six years at Sevastopol before arriving in Sturgeon Bay. He said he’s been “very fortunate” to work for four years as a dean and five as a principal at Sturgeon Bay and is not leaving the county.

“We just love living here,” he said. 

O’Handley’s wife, Jennifer, is a counselor at the high school, and his middle school–aged sons were born and raised here. He loves taking the boys camping, and he and his wife both enjoy backpacking, “tromping around” and being outside. He also plans to build a chicken coop while taking time to consider other opportunities.

Tjernagel said O’Handley made considerable efforts to set up safeguards and systems to support students’ needs beyond reading, writing and arithmetic, which took on great importance nationwide during the pandemic-driven disruptions. O’Handley said he took an interest in helping students on the “social and emotional side of things.”

“We’ve really put a lot of different pieces in place,” O’Handley said. “This was before COVID, so the timing was great. We’ve had partnerships with private-practice therapists that work out of our building, [and] we did a lot of staff professional development around supporting kids who come from all sorts of different backgrounds and have a variety of needs. We retooled the way we respond to behaviors in the classroom.”

Like some neighboring districts, his school has therapy dogs that come to the building from time to time. In addition, this year, the staff paid extra attention to literacy, watching for students who’ve fallen behind in reading and writing. He said Door County schools that have been open during most of the pandemic have seen less of a problem than big-city schools worldwide that closed or limited student-teacher interaction and suffered from losing daily contact with students.