Ethan Dschaak has served as an administrator in the Meade District for twelve years and has led Piedmont Valley Elementary School for the past seven. Dschaak and his staff take great pride in having been named a South Dakota Distinguished School in 2010 and 2011 while maintaining strong test scores, with performance index scores consistently highest in the district in recent years. His arrival at PVE coincided with a period of unprecedented growth with a doubling of enrollment to almost 600 students. This necessitated the construction of a new, state of the art school in 2011, with Dschaak playing an integral role in infrastructural development. He has implemented initiatives including scheduling plans to support small learning communities, an increased emphasis on early childhood with full day kindergarten, and the transition from targeted to school-wide title services. With the goal of integrating technology as a tool for research, reading, and word processing, he successfully led a pilot iPad program for fourth and fifth grades in 2013 and 2014, which expanded in 2015 to include MacBook Pros for all sixth graders in the district. Dschaak holds a B.A. in Special Education and Physical Education from Black Hills State University and a Master’s in Educational Leadership from South Dakota State University.