Meet Curtis Whitesel, the ‘new guy’ who is Bald Eagle’s new school superintendent

There are about 1,500 students in the Bald Eagle Area School District, and new superintendent Curtis Whitesel has been busy trying to learn their names, along with the names of teachers and other staff members.

Although hired in July by the board, Whitesel started Monday as the new superintendent at BEA, taking over for interim superintendent Joseph Clapper. Superintendent Scott Graham announced his resignation in March.

“Everybody wants to meet the new guy,” Whitesel said, sitting in the conference room of the district’s administrative offices, a student’s painting of an eagle over his shoulder.

Between meeting with other administrators, trips to the bank, and his 60-mile commute, Whitesel’s been slowly learning the names of the many teachers and students of BEA. Although he’s still a long drive from home, the move allows him to be home on weeknights with his wife and six daughters who live in Mount Union.

Whitesel is a longtime educator and has been a science teacher, special education teacher, junior high principal and high school principal. He taught at Mount Union School District in Huntingdon County for 16 years before becoming superintendent at Homer-Center School District in Indiana County.

Whitesel started his career as a superintendent in the fall of 2019, just months before the pandemic changed everything about how schools operate.

“We were making a lot of decisions on the fly,” Whitesel said. “But we had a really close-knit group of superintendents in Indiana County, and we shared ideas and we communicated and that was a huge help. I wasn’t on an island by myself.”

In the coming months, he said his first priority is to showcase BEA’s academic and athletic abilities with the goal of increasing district enrollment, both from families moving in and those who attend private or charter schools.

“I would like to start working with the community, maybe getting involved with representatives of the area and see what we can do about increasing the population, getting people to come back to the area,” he said.

Throughout his career Whitesel has lived by one rule: Always do what’s best for students.

“I know that’s a cliche, but you just want to look at every student that you graduate and know that when they leave here, they have the opportunity to do what they want, however they want,” Whitesel said. “And that’s my vision of education.”

When Whitesel isn’t busy with work or family, he’s an avid sports fan. He originally went to college for sports broadcasting but became an educator, partly due to the draw of coaching high school sports. Although he’s now sporting the Eagle for his district, Whitesel is also a loyal Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

Whitesel is also very involved with his role in the PIAA District VI Athletic Committee.

“I take a lot of pride in that and making decisions for what’s best for kids athletically and making sure we have a level and fair playing field for everybody,” Whitesel said.