Garrard County Superintendent Kalem Grasham works with student Gunnar Watkins at Lancaster Elementary School. Photo by Sydney Ray, Garrard County Schools
The new superintendent of Garrard County, Kalem Grasham, said he has enjoyed building relationships with staff in the district, and their smaller community allows for more collaboration between teachers, schools and other stakeholders.
“I enjoy the ability to go around and visit all the schools,” Grasham said. “What I think makes it so special and unique is everybody is in this close-knit relationship. So, I have weekly conversations with our county judge executive; I have a weekly conversation with our mayor of our city.”
Grasham said each month, he and other local officials eat lunch together and discuss how they can collaborate. He said quality communication with representatives in local government can help secure resources for the district and its students.
“We’re not always going to agree to do the same thing, but at least if we’re moving all of those institutions in the same direction, I think the people in Garrard County will benefit from that,” Grasham said.
Grasham has worked in the district for 28 years, holding several different positions. He has worked as a special education teacher, a regular education teacher, health teacher, an assistant coach, assistant principal at Garrard County High School and then as principal of the high school. For the last eight years, he served as director of federal programs before taking over as superintendent on July 1.
Grasham has a doctorate in education and an education specialist degree from the University of the Cumberlands, along with a bachelor’s in physical education and a master’s in educational leadership from Eastern Kentucky University.
He grew up in nearby Lincoln County and is a 1993 graduate of Lincoln County High School. He said he fell in love with Garrard County when he first started working there as a teacher. He said the people there work hard for their community.
“People believe in hard work and have these core values and morals (they) share as well,” he said.
As superintendent, Grasham said he has developed and shared core values that he encourages staff to have in every interaction, every conversation and every decision they make.
“I want to have clarity with everything we do from a leadership level so that everyone is very aware of our expectations,” Grasham said. “I want to have coherence that everything fits together and it’s all interconnected. We’re not doing things from a single issue; We’re being able to kind of communicate in a clear way, so everybody knows how everything is kind of being fit together.”
He continued, “I want to be really consistent with how we conduct ourselves. I want us to have a cadence of execution with our consistency.”
Grasham said one thing the district is working on is why enrollment has dipped in recent years. Grasham said part of the decline can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they’re working to create a plan to address a variety of issues related to enrollment.
“I want to play offense with our enrollment, not just defense,” he said. “I don’t want to keep talking about why we’re losing kids; I want to come up with a plan to get our enrollment back up to where it needs to be.”
Grasham said he has loved working in the county and is honored to take on the role of superintendent.
“It has been a dream of mine to lead a school district that I love, and I care about so much,” he said. “I’m blessed and honored and I use that word serve because I do want to be a servant leader. I’m here to serve our staff, I’m here to serve our students, our families, our community. I want to give our community something that they’re just incredibly proud of.”
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