2023 Men of the Year: Mark McGehee

When Mark McGehee first started in the role of assistant principal for Nixa Junior High in 2000, he introduced the concept of interdisciplinary teaming, a model of learning where a set of teachers focus on core subjects with one cohort of students, according to the Association of Middle Level Education. Despite being nervous about adding new changes too quickly, McGehee thought it was worth the risk.

“I believed in the benefits that a successful implementation could mean for our students and the difficult transition that kids make between elementary and secondary school,” he says. “In less than one year, interdisciplinary teaming was up and going at Nixa Junior High, and other school districts started requesting visits to our school to see what we were doing.”

Implementing change through dynamic leadership didn’t stop there. When McGehee transitioned to principal at Nixa High School, he noticed that high-achieving students weren’t given resources to reach their full potential.

“These students were already proving to be highly successful when they left high school, but what could their future opportunities look like if we were pouring into their learning needs the same way we were with our struggling learners,” McGehee says of the resulting work with his staff and educators to expand the Advanced Placement program. “As a result of the students’ success in these classes, Nixa High School was recognized by The College Board as an International AP Honor Roll school, one of only a handful in the state.”

McGehee now serves as executive director of human resources for Nixa Public Schools, and he says he arrived at the position with a new set of eyes. No stranger to implementing change, McGehee has been analyzing HR processes and, with his team, streamlining the hiring process through digitization and thinking outside the box.

“We have continued to add in more innovative ideas, like hiring events similar to speed dating to help us interview a large number of people in a short amount of time,” he says.

Education remains at the forefront of McGehee’s professional life, seeping into roles outside the school building. As a board member of the Nixa Education Foundation, McGehee helps oversee funding and grant opportunities that support the district.

“The most rewarding part of this work is getting to see the classroom projects that our grants have funded in action and watching successful learning activities take place that we were able to help make possible,” he says.

In addition, McGehee finds fulfillment performing in his church’s orchestra and being a member of Nixa Rotary Club.

With a career spanning nearly three decades in education, McGehee says he factors one consistent tenet as a testament to his growth: shared leadership.

“A leader must build a team of individuals that have a mindset of serving others, and then cultivate servant leadership by modeling it in everything they do,” McGehee says. “True leaders do not seek gains for themselves, rather they seek gains for others.”