Room 022 is an office Duane Baumann is hoping he’ll be able to keep.

That way, when Baumann’s not keeping any eye on the progress of students on his computer screen, he can glance out the window at the tennis courts from time to time and maybe catch a glimpse of his twin sons.

“I like it,” he said of the office. “I like watching the tennis. My sons play tennis.”

Baumann is likely to retain the corner office now that he’s been hired as principal at Coupeville High School and Middle School.

His promotion was approved Monday night by the Coupeville School Board after the school district conducted an internal application and interview process and a hiring committee unanimously recommended him.

“My impressions of Duane is he’s very well prepared to take on the role of principal and will do a great job,” Superintendent Jim Shank said. “He knows the kids. He knows the staff. He understands things that need to be accomplished. He sees the vision of where it is that he’d like to take the school.

“I think very highly of Duane. I think he’s a very qualified administrator.”

Baumann, 43, is completing his sixth school year as an administrator at Coupeville and 18th as an educator.

The past two years, he’s served as the high school/middle school assistant principal and athletic director.

He’s worked even more closely this school year with Shank, who added the title of high school/middle school principal to is responsibilities after the school district dropped that administrative position and let Larry Walsh go last summer.

With an unexpected sharp increase in enrollment this school year, the Coupeville school board decided to restore that administrative position and ultimately rewarded Baumann for his work and let Shank return his focus to his superintendent duties.

The school district will be hiring a replacement for Baumann as assistant principal.

Willie Smith was hired as athletic director.

“We were at 856 kids last year at this time,” Shank said. “We were projecting 840 because the trend data showed that we would drop another 20 kids and then we had 70 new kids show up in the the fall.

“So we watched and waited to see if that was going to stick and it has. We’re at 930 this month at our last count and we were at 925 around January. So the board and I decided to talk about with the increase in enrollment, does it make sense for the superintendent to continue to serve as principal? And a decision was made to go ahead and return the principal position to the middle/high school.”

It was a welcome development for Baumann, a former math teacher and father of five who’s excited to tackle the new challenge.

It’s his first time as a principal and he’ll be the third to hold that title in Coupeville in three years.

“It’s interesting. It’ll be new challenges. It’ll be fun,” Baumann said.

“The athletic piece is going to someone else so they can kind of specialize with that with Willie. I get to concentrate more on our programs like our CTE, teaching, our professional learning communities, student scores, graduation … and student improvement.”

With his math mind, Baumann is always trying to figure things out, always striving to improve things.

“It’s a great staff,” he said. We’re doing a lot of changes for the future. We introduced a master schedule (this school year), added core elections and we’re trying to incorporate a STEAM program (science, technology, engineering and math, plus arts) into the school year.”

Baumann is always trying to solve something.

“I love things like puzzles,” he said. “So the master schedule comes easily and naturally to me. For some, it’s a nightmare. For me, kind of a way to relax sometimes is just working the master schedule and trying to get things to fit just right. That’s just the way my brain operates.”