When Merrillville High School Principal Mike Krutz was named Indiana’s principal of the year last year, he credits the “whole Pirate family working together.”
“It was a school-wide reward because principals certainly do not do it by themselves,” he said. “Teachers and support-staff working together as a team and the collective successes of the high school allowed me to receive the award.”
Krutz is proud of MHS’ recent track record of being the only “minority-majority” school in Indiana to receive an ‘A’ grade.
“And we’ve done that three years in a row,” he said. “We’ve made some steady gains and have always been recognized as a leader for a minority-majority school.”
2012-13 was an impeccable year for the school. Merrillville was one of five high schools across the nation to receive a $10,000 award recognizing schools that educate young men of color. They were also honored to receive an award from the International Center for Leadership in Education by founder Bill Daggett.
While MHS has always been a highly rated school, it has taken off leaps and bounds over the last nine years since Krutz was first promoted to principal from the assistant principal position he held for five years prior.
“The best thing about MHS is that we provide our teachers and students a learning environment where kids can be successful no matter where they come from and regardless of ther background,” Krutz said. “They can overcome any obstacle that is put in front of them. If you have the right people in place, anything is attainable for our students.”
Krutz says Merrillville stresses the “four r’s” - relationships, rigor in terms of the curriculum, relevant material and teaching the importance of resiliency.
“It’s important to have high expectations for kids,” he said. “They either live up to the high expectations or fall back if those expectations are low.”
Outside of earning an undergraduate degree at Ball State University, a Master’s from Indiana University Northwest and his principal certification from Indiana State University, Krutz is a Merrillville lifer.
Graduating from the school he now leads in 1979, Krutz later taught computer-aided drafting for 14 years before being named assistant principal at MHS.
After working for a steel company for 2 ½ years, Krutz said the motivation to become an educator full-time came while he was substituting at the school.
“I realized it was something I really enjoyed,” he said. “After a few months, I knew I really wanted to become a teacher.”
While saying he has ‘a lot of mentors” that have helped him reach his goal of being a high-level educator, Krutz credits his mother, his wife, Elizabeth Krutz (who is principal at Central Elementary School in Valparaiso) and recently-retired Merrillville Schools Superintendent Dr. Tony Lux on helping him the most.
“He’s the one who talked about the importance of implementation, monitoring what gets done and making good kid decisions,” Krutz said of Lux.
Krutz says he has no plans to do anything different in the near future.
“I have one of the greatest jobs you could ever have because the kids keep coming, the faces and names change, but the goal always remains the same and that is to make a difference in people’s lives.”