SAC CITY — An educator who currently serves as the superintendent of two north central Iowa school districts will be adding a third one to his agenda after he was named the superintendent of the East Sac County Community School District.

Jeff Kruse will take over as superintendent on July 1.

He will be replacing Barb Kruthoff, who is retiring.

Kruse also serves as the superintendent of South Central Calhoun and the Ar-We-Va Community School District.

He said he’s looking forward to the challenge as serving as superintendent of three districts.

“And so it was an opportunity to take some of my experiences and try to bring those experiences to another school district,” Kruse said.

He looks forward to helping out with “problem-solving” and working together with the community.

According to Kruse, East Sac has been dealing with a facilities issue recently, that being discussions about closing the middle school, located in Sac City.

In the past, Kruse has helped school districts that have been struggling with one issue or another. From 2014 to 2017, Kruse was the superintendent of the Laurens-Marathon Community School District. When he started, the district was dealing with a financial crisis that included a budget shortfall of more than $200,000.

During his tenure, Kruse oversaw a partial-grade sharing agreement, which later became a full-grade sharing agreement, with Pocahontas Area High School. This agreement, which is still in place, ended up benefitting both districts.

“I’m just looking forward to the opportunity of working with the community and school district,” he said. “I’m just waiting for July 1 to begin so I can officially take over.”

But Kruse isn’t waiting until then to familiarize himself with East Sac.

“I’ve already been attending board meetings,” he said. “I’ve probably been to the last five or six board meetings.”

He added that he’ll also be participating in interviews for a new principal.

Kruse will split his time between the districts 40-40-20; 40 percent of his time will be at East Sac, 40 percent of his time will be at South Central Calhoun, and 20 percent of his time will be at Ar-We-Va.

He won’t have a set schedule and will determine his days at each school by week.