New principal looks forward to joining St. Michael’s School

Posted on August 17, 2023 by Ryan Dahlman

By Anna Smith
Commentator/Courier

With the new school year coming up fast, St. Michael’s School in Bow Island is pleased to welcome its new principal for the 2023–2024 school year.

Kevin Kinahan is a deviated Catholic educator with over 30 years in the Holy Spirit Division community.

“I’ve been living in Coaldale for the last 30 years or so. My three kids are all born and raised in Coaldale. I’ve been an administrator in the Holy Spirit Catholic District for 20 I guess 21 years,” said Kinahan.

While Kinahan had retired previously from full-time work to filling in for administrative leaves and substitute teaching for the past two years, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to get back in the saddle when offered the position in Bow Island.

“When my superintendent asked me about it, he didn’t say what school it was at first,” said Kinahan.”He asked whether I’d consider coming back and I really leaned towards saying no, but then he told me Bow Island. I knew the past principal that was there last year, as well as the principal Chris Sumner that had been there for years.”

While Kinahan added that while he took a few days to consider it, the initial reaction of refusal changed fairly quickly after hearing which school it was that needed a new principal.

“The way that he spoke about the school and the community and knowing that it’s a small town, it just drew me into it,” said Kinahan. While he had experience in both more urban centres and smaller communities, he has a deep love of the rural communities and getting to see students and parents out and about as part of life in a community.

Above all, Kinahan is looking forward to getting to know the students, staff, and culture of St. Michael’s school, and adapting to be the best administrator he can be for this specific school and community.

“It always takes a little bit of time to get to know the people and, you know, everyone, every school runs a little bit differently. And people do things in different ways. I’m not one to come in and just make changes right off the bat, that’s not me,” said Kinahan. “I need to take a little bit of time, learn the community, learn the school, learn what they want. Growth would be a great thing for St. Michael’s School. So how do we go about doing that? And so it’s asking the right questions, and finding the right answers.”

This is Kinahan’s first K–12 school, and also where he will be teaching some high school religion courses as well as a few options, which will be new experiences he’s eagerly looking forward to.

“I believe that you really have to love what you do, and enjoy doing it. If you’re gonna keep doing it. And that’s kind of been my motto my whole career like I, I enjoy teaching. I love getting to know the kids,” said Kinahan. “I plan on having some fun when I’m out there. I plan on fooling around and participating and I’m certainly not going to be sitting in my office all day long. And I love basketball. So I plan to be coaching or refereeing or playing basketball. I plan to be quite active.”