Hazen resigning as Dist. 2 superintendent

For more than 16 years, Doug Hazen has served the Lovell community as a teacher, coach and administrator, but after that long, successful and enjoyable run, he has decided it’s time for a change.

The longtime local career of District Two Superintendent of Schools Hazen will be coming to an end next spring with his announcement at Monday’s school board meeting that he is resigning effective at the end of the 2024-25 school year.

Hazen has worked in Lovell for 16 out of the last 17 years, rising from a first-year math teacher and coach to leading School District No. 2. He said he has been thinking about a change for several months now and made his decision official this week in order to give the district time to advertise for and hire a replacement.

The decision to move on is completely family and quality of life driven, he said, noting that he is not resigning to take another position and, in fact, has nothing lined up. He also expressed great respect and appreciation for the district and community he has served and grown to love.

A native of Waupaca, Wisconsin, Hazen came to Lovell as a math teacher and coach in 2008 following four years at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin, for his undergraduate degree and two years at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, for his master’s degree.

He obtained his doctorate from the University of Wyoming a year ago.

Hazen served as an assistant football coach for one season at LHS before being named the head coach the following season. He also coached middle school wrestling.

“My first major full-time job in my life was here,” he said. “I was a grad assistant and worked a number of different jobs through high school and college, but this was my first teaching job.”

Hazen was named principal at Lovell Middle School in 2013 and served in that capacity for six years before being hired as a junior high principal in Columbia Falls, Montana, in 2019. After one year in Montana, he was hired as the School District No. 2 superintendent in Lovell in 2020, facing the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic. He will complete five years as District Two superintendent at the end of June 2025.

“I am supremely grateful to our school board. They have treated me better than I could have ever imagined,” Hazen said. “And that really goes for the district in general. I know with changes and the timing of things sometimes people question different pieces, but I am not disgruntled in any way. I am and will always be grateful and be an advocate for Big Horn Two.  At this point in my career, it’s mostly all I’ve known.”

Time for a change

Hazen said it is simply the right time for a change.

“A big part of it really is just looking at my children’s age,” he said. “My oldest (Addision) is a seventh grader and is going to be an eighth grader next year, and so if we’re going to make a change, I didn’t want to make that once she entered high school.

“There’s a degree of the decision that the job is very difficult, and so there’s an exhaustion or tiring component. I started in 2008. I’m an outsider, but I’ve come up through the system. I’ve grown up as an educator in this system, and the job of superintendent requires a lot of difficult decisions at times.”

Since he grew up professionally in the district and has lived in the community for 12 years, making decisions about people he has forged relationships with over the years can be difficult and taxing, he said.

“Part of what I may have grown tired of or I found difficult to navigate -- the same thing that often saves me -- is I have built a lot of relationships with a lot of people in the district, in the community, all of that, and that can play against me as far as I don’t like having to be at odds at times with people I very much care about because of the role that I’m playing.”

There’s a great difference in perspective and duties between the role of a teacher and an administrator, Hazen said, and a superintendent has even greater responsibilities.

“My perspective certainly has changed, and there are a lot of hard decisions that come with the job,” he said. “Some of them seem insignificant, but in a small community, who gets an interview and who doesn’t get an interview, who is hired, who’s not hired, who is let go, who’s not -- all of those things just add up.

“It’s not that I won’t look at other superintendent jobs. I don’t mean to say I’m done for sure doing that job, but I guess I came to a point where I think things are still rather good and I want to be done on my terms with this community and in this district and not when decisions, relationships, whatever, have become so difficult. I don’t want relationships to influence what decisions need to be made. … When you’ve got to make a hard decision on something, it’s hard when you know and care about a lot of people that it affects.”

Board reaction

“My fellow board members and I were sad to learn of Dr. Hazen’s decision to resign as superintendent,” school board chairman Stacy Bair said. “Over the years, Dr. Hazen has been an incredible blessing to our community. He has led the district with vision, passion and a sense of humor that makes him beloved by staff and students. The effects of the positive impact he has had on our schools will be felt for years to come. 

“Dr. Hazen has shown dedication to our district by giving the district ample time to find a suitable replacement. His shoes will be very tough to fill. We wish Dr. Hazen nothing but the best in all his future endeavors. We are forever grateful for the time he gave us.”

The future

Hazen said he really doesn’t know what’s next for his career.

“This is the first time in my career where I haven’t had the next job already lined up and signing on their dotted line as I’m resigning from the current one,” he said. “I sincerely do not know exactly what’s going to happen. There are a number of things I’d like to do, but I don’t have necessarily one right now.”

Hazen said he might go into consulting, educational speaking and professional development or leading a larger school district. With a doctorate completed, he could see himself working as a professor at a university someday. He could also see a role advising artificial intelligence companies about how AI affects educators and teaching.

He said he could even see himself returning to his roots teaching math and coaching football, because he misses it, adding about  the future, “It’s clear as mud, so my wife says.”

Hazen doesn’t see himself returning to the Midwest and said he likes the area, noting, “I’m going to look in Wyoming first. I’d like to stay here, or in the area.”

He said he will depart with many positive feelings about the Lovell schools and community.

“I’ll always be an advocate for Lovell and Big Horn Two schools and the community,” Hazen said, noting that he’s “forever grateful” that the school district took in a kid from the Midwest for his first job and gave him experience in myriad areas.

“The opportunities I was provided in this community are unbelievable,” he said. “I mean, where else can you go from first-year teacher to superintendent in (such a short time frame) and within that time having coaching opportunities, of course teaching, but also administrative work and (working as) special ed director? Just the amount of knowledge I was able to gain about Wyoming education is astounding.”

As for the district, Hazen said he doesn’t know of any superintendent positions being advertised through the Wyoming School Boards Association, so District Two should get a leg up in the hiring process, with the position having a lot of appeal, noting, “We’re on track and have built a really good foundation as a district.”

Summing up, Hazen said, “It’s not that I dislike the job. I really do like it. But there’s times where I’d like the decisions maybe to affect people that I don’t know personally and care about as much, just want to do it as a job and not have it involve the personal side quite as much.

“I would hope that people know I very much still care about the district and still appreciate all the opportunities. Mostly, I’m just saying I think it’s time for somebody else to sit in the seat and do those things.”