By LEANN BURKE 
lburke@dcherald.com 

FERDINAND — When Tyler Lemen comes to work next school year, his destination will be a few blocks north of where he’s used to.

The current Ferdinand Elementary principal will move to Forest Park Junior-Senior High School next year where he’ll take over as principal of the secondary school. Forest Park’s current principal, Jamie Pund, will move to the central office as Southeast Dubois’ new superintendent.

The school board announced Lemen’s new position at its meeting Wednesday.

Lemen graduated from Heritage Hills High School in 2008 and earned an undergraduate degree in music education from Indiana State University in Terre Haute. After college, he taught choir at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis while earning his master’s degree in educational leadership from the American College of Education. After completing his master’s in 2015, he took a job as assistant principal at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Jasper and eventually became principal of the parochial school. He became Ferdinand Elementary’s principal in the fall of 2018.

One of Lemen’s professional goals has been to return to secondary education, so when the principal position at Forest Park opened, he knew he had to apply, despite only being at Ferdinand Elementary for one year.

“I really had to think about it,” he said. “But I always say you need to follow your goals.”

He noted that the Ferdinand Elementary community has been great to work with.

Lemen said he likes the challenges that come with working with the upper grade levels and the impact you can have on your students as they prepare for graduation and life after high school. He said he’s looking forward to “getting into the trenches” with Forest Park’s faculty and staff and continuing to work with Pund to keep Forest Park strong.

“It’s a rare opportunity to have the former principal still available,” Lemen said.

One of Lemen’s and Pund’s first orders of business at Forest Park will be hiring an assistant principal after the current assistant principal, David Welp, returns to the classroom this fall.