‘A life profoundly well-lived’

Harmon Baldwin’s first job in education was as a teacher and coach at a small Indiana school. He once said that, if he had been a better coach, he might never have become a school administrator. That would have been a huge loss.

Baldwin, who died last week at 100, contributed so much to education and civic life during a four-decade career and a long, active retirement. He was smart, sensible and always good-humored. Public education has probably never had a better ambassador.

He was also a living encyclopedia of school history in Indiana. He had lived it. He knew and could talk from first-hand experience about the figures and forces that shaped postwar Hoosier education.

The door keeps revolving on the MCCSC superintendency

There’s no way to put a positive spin on the news that J.T. Coopman is retiring at the end of December as superintendent of the Monroe County Community School Corp.

It means the MCCSC school board will be naming its fifth superintendent in five years – probably an interim superintendent to fill in while the board searches for a longer-term leader. Potential candidates would have to think twice about jumping to such an unstable situation.

Coopman, 59, told the Bloomington Herald-Times (subscription required) he was “absolutely worn out” after a stressful period that included his wife’s ongoing battle with cancer, $5.8 million in MCCSC budget cuts and a hurried funding referendum for the district.

“There’s only so many fights in a dog. And this old dog doesn’t have many fights left,” he said.

Was he also exhausted by a school board that was overly involved in every decision? He told the H-T that board members’ hearts were in the right place, but “I can’t say we always are on the same page.”