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The Man Who Hopes You Never Think About Him

On Dr. Andrew Vollmuth, Superintendent of New Prague Area Schools, the Farm in North Dakota That Started It All & the Most Quietly Remarkable Philosophy This Gazette Has Encountered All Season

Dear gentle reader,

Your correspondent has, in the course of this column's distinguished life, encountered subjects who wished to be celebrated, subjects who wished to be understood, and subjects who wished simply to tell their story. This week she encounters something altogether rarer — a man who, when asked what he wants people to know about him, answers without hesitation that he hopes people do not think about him at all. That the focus, as far as he is concerned, belongs entirely on the students and teachers in the classroom and the work of the staff throughout the school system . Your correspondent found this answer so disarmingly genuine that she nearly set down her quill entirely. She did not, of course. But she considered it.

His name is Dr. Andrew Vollmuth, and he is the Superintendent of New Prague Area Schools — a position he has held since 2023, and one he approaches with the particular combination of educational passion and business acumen that comes from a career spent deliberately blending both. He is, in the truest sense, a product of two worlds: the son of a farmer and a teacher in rural North Dakota, who grew up understanding instinctively that the most important work happens quietly, without fanfare, and with the needs of others firmly at the center.

He hopes you do not think about him. He hopes, instead, That the focus, as far as he is concerned, belongs entirely on the students and teachers in the classroom and the work of the staff throughout the school system. Your correspondent submits that this is the most admirable professional ambition she has encountered in some considerable time.

The road to New Prague was a long and intentional one. Dr. Vollmuth began his career teaching in Minneapolis public schools in the late 1990s — drawn to education, but equally drawn to the business side of how institutions function. He took classes in both fields in college, sensing even then that the two disciplines need not be mutually exclusive. From classroom teacher he became a principal in Rochester, then a principal in Bloomington, accumulating along the way the particular wisdom that only comes from having stood on both sides of the administrative desk. In 2023, New Prague Area Schools gained a superintendent of considerable experience and, your correspondent is pleased to report, equally considerable humility.

His motivation is framed, he says with the self-awareness of a man who has delivered it before, as something of a cliché — and yet it is one of those clichés that has endured precisely because it is true: what the best and wisest parents want for their children is what the community should want for all its children. That is the standard he holds himself to. That is the measure against which he judges every decision. Not abstract policy. Not administrative efficiency. The child in the classroom, and what that child needs to succeed.

He grew up on a farm in rural North Dakota, where the options, as he tells it with characteristic plainness, were rather straightforward: his father farmed, his mother taught. He wanted to teach and to coach — the coaching never quite materialized as he had imagined, the districts and roles taking him in a different direction — but he has found, in the superintendent's chair, a way to influence and support in a manner that coaching once promised. Your correspondent finds the arc rather satisfying.

At home, Dr. Vollmuth is accompanied by his wife — herself an educator, which your correspondent considers the most perfectly matched pairing imaginable — and three teenage children who are, he says with the serene confidence of a man who has made his peace with it, very much their primary occupation. Their hobbies are their work and raising their children. They are, he says simply, where they want to be. Your correspondent finds this the most quietly contented domestic portrait she has encountered in some time, and admires it without reservation.

Their hobbies are their work and raising their children. They are where they want to be. Your correspondent considers this, without equivocation, the definition of a life well arranged.

In the rare moments that leisure presents itself, Dr. Vollmuth wishes — rather wistfully, your correspondent notes — for more time at the New Prague Golf Course. He loves the restaurants. He finds the city vibrant in a way that clearly delights him. He speaks with genuine excitement about the new band shell, and about the many fabulous things happening in New Prague with the enthusiasm of a man who arrived in 2023 and has been pleasantly surprised ever since. Your correspondent suspects New Prague has had precisely the same feeling about him.

✦ A Most Pressing Notice from This Gazette ✦

Dear reader, while your correspondent has your attention — tickets for the Renaissance Ball on August 15th at Le Fete Royale are on sale now, and they are moving with a speed that this gazette finds both gratifying and faintly alarming. An evening of elevated appetizers, designer drinks, elegant desserts, live entertainment, a costume contest, and an announcement of considerable consequence awaits — and the room, your correspondent is given to understand, shall not remain available indefinitely. Furthermore, this gazette extends a most distinguished invitation to businesses of vision and ambition: table sponsorships for the evening are still available, and your correspondent can think of no finer way to place one's name at the very center of New Prague's most talked-about evening of the season. Do not, dear reader, be the one left standing outside wondering what all the fuss was about. Secure your ticket. Enquire about your table. The evening of the season is very nearly upon us.

Dr. Andrew Vollmuth — Superintendent, New Prague Area Schools.

Former teacher. Former principal. Lifelong educator.

A man who hopes you think about the students. Your correspondent hopes you think about both.

Your correspondent remains, as always, watching — and this week, rather grateful that New Prague's schools are in such quietly capable hands.

— A Lady Who Knows a Public Servant When She Sees One