McHenry West Principal Marsha Potthoff, District 156 business chief Dave Lawson retiring

Two McHenry High School District 156 officials, West Campus Principal Marsha Potthoff and business chief Dave Lawson, are retiring at the end of this academic year.

The retirements come as the school system transitions away from hosting two campuses with all four grade levels at each starting in the fall.

Freshmen are set to begin attending what is now the East Campus come August, with sophomores through seniors at what is now the West Campus, where a new, $44 million expansion by tens of thousands of feet is nearly complete and will be ready for the next school year.

Jeff Prickett, the principal at the East Campus, has been selected to serve as the sole principal for both District 156 buildings.

Potthoff and Lawson each spent just less than 10 years helping to lead the McHenry high school system and also worked stints at other districts in McHenry County and northern Illinois.

“You have to be ready for change. Even as adults. Everything in teaching changed the last couple years. I had never done a virtual graduation. I had never done live streaming. I never did Zoom,” said Potthoff, who worked as a principal for Crystal Lake South High School for 10 years before coming to District 156.

She also taught English and was a counselor at Sycamore High School earlier in her career.

Before the start of last school year, which was disrupted by the pandemic in the spring, Potthoff considered retiring in 2020. But prior to the outbreak, she said Superintendent Ryan McTague asked her to stay on for another school year to help with the transition from the two-campus system to East being used by freshmen exclusively and Potthoff accepted.

She said she especially enjoyed participating in extracurriculars as a coach and organizer.

“I was a volleyball coach when I taught for quite a number of years. I always loved the extracurricular part of all my jobs. I was a student council advisor, [and] I started a drug and alcohol prevention group as a counselor,” she said. “That was one of the biggest reasons I never wanted to move onto the district office, I really enjoyed getting to know the students and that’s what made it really fun and me able to do it that long.”

Lawson, who came into public education from the private sector 17 years ago after serving on both the District 156 and McHenry Elementary District 15 school boards, has been the high school system’s chief financial officer and chief school business official for nine years after serving four with Johnsburg School District 12.

Both he and Potthoff said District 156 was fortunate to have already been working on what educators were calling “blended learning,” prior to the pandemic, as it involved performing school work on the computer.

Lawson expects school systems to continue to emphasize the need to stay healthy and stay home when feeling any symptoms of illness, especially since remote learning can be more frequently used once the pandemic is over, as well, on what would be snow days and to allow students to participate and catch up while sick or recovering.

“We were fortunate that we were kind of already in that mode and thinking about that and working with kids,” Lawson said. “We weren’t prepared to do it for every class every day. But we were more prepared than many schools were.”

Lawson started out in public education with Cary School District 26 in 2004, overseeing building, grounds and transportation finances. He became the head business manager for an Illinois school district the first time for the Skokie School District 69.

District 156 Superintendent Ryan McTague spoke fondly of both outgoing employees.

“Dave has been an amazing caretaker of district finances and taxpayer dollars during his time at McHenry,” McTague said. “As the leader of West Campus, Marsha has always been a strong student advocate. Her passionate, caring and determined leadership will be missed by students, parents, teachers and administrators.”