Two public high schools in the Illinois-Indiana corridor quietly swapped out principals last week, the latest in a string of management reshufflings that give parents little time to ask questions before the next change is already underway.
At La Salle-Peru Township High School District 120, the board named Steve Hanson principal — the third person to hold or act in that role in under a year. At Munster High School across the state line, Robert Snyder takes the top job after predecessor Morgan Nolan was shifted into a central office operations post.
The L-P turnover is the more troubling of the two. Hanson replaces Kate Lance, who served as interim principal and has already moved on to an assistant principal position at Ottawa Township High School. Lance had replaced Ingrid Cushing, who became interim superintendent last November after then-superintendent Steven Wrobleski departed following a misconduct investigation. Cushing now slides into an assistant superintendent role, and Clay Theisinger, formerly of Putnam County CUSD 535, takes over as superintendent on July 1. That's a lot of musical chairs in a short window — and the misconduct investigation that started it all has produced no publicly reported accountability beyond Wrobleski's exit.
Shaw Local covered the personnel moves straightforwardly but left the misconduct details at "following a misconduct investigation" — no findings, no outcomes, no follow-up on whether the public was ever told what happened.
At Munster, the Chicago Tribune framed the Snyder appointment as a feel-good promotion, highlighting his 17-year tenure and the dual credit program that awarded 62,606 college credits between 2018 and 2025, saving families an estimated $18.7 million in tuition. Snyder holds degrees from Valparaiso and Purdue and was awarded an honorary degree from Ivy Tech Community College in 2023. The Tribune noted that Nolan is moving to an assistant director of operations role and will replace director Sean Begley once Begley departs for a federal government assignment. What the Tribune buried: why a sitting principal with just two years in the job — Nolan returned as MHS principal in 2023 — is being moved out of it.
In both districts, the pattern is the same: administrators cycle through titles, internal investigations go quietly unexplained, and parents are expected to accept the new org chart without asking what it papers over. The L-P misconduct investigation deserves sunlight. The Munster principal shuffle deserves a straight answer. Public schools are public trust — and right now, the trustees are reshuffling the deck without showing the cards.
