Isle of Wight County Schools Superintendent Theo Cramer is living proof that the choice between pursuing college or going into a trade after graduating high school isn’t always binary.

Some, like him, end up doing both.

Prior to Cramer’s 30-year career across three Maryland school systems, and now IWCS, he worked for his family’s construction company doing drywall installation for large commercial projects in the Washington, D.C., area.

He’s since earned a bachelor of arts degree from South Carolina State University in political science, a master of arts in administration and supervision from Bowie State University, and his doctoral degree in educational and organizational leadership from the University of Pennsylvania, but he never forgot his skilled trade.

Cramer recently demonstrated his drywall skills by assisting with the renovation of the two remaining wings of the circa-1961 Hardy Elementary into the division’s new central office.

In a video produced by IWCS, Cramer is seen taping drywall seams in one of the classrooms that’s been subdivided into offices.

“It’s important for people to see that you can do both; you can have a trade and you can go to college,” Cramer said.

According to IWCS spokeswoman Lynn Briggs, the goal is to have everybody moved in by Jan. 13. Cramer, Deputy Superintendent Christopher Coleman and their administrative assistants were the first to relocate, on Dec. 13, to the new office at 9307 Old Stage Highway adjacent to the replacement Hardy that opened in 2023. The phone numbers for division administrators will not change as a result of the move, Coleman said.

Circa-2021 plans for the new Hardy called for saving the old school’s gymnasium wing, which Cramer in 2023 proposed converting into a climate-controlled warehouse for less than the $700,000 to $1.5 million the division was quoted to build new. That same year, Cramer proposed saving a perpendicular classroom wing to create an L-shaped 22,000-square-foot building with enough space to bring the division’s administration, special education and technology departments back under one roof. Currently, the central office and special education departments are housed in separate modular buildings behind Westside Elementary, while the technology department occupies four classrooms at Smithfield High School.

“The primary purpose for the school administration office in the beginning was the warehouse – a 2,000-square-foot warehouse, climate-controlled and secured; something that this division has never had,” Coleman said.

The renovation is being funded with the remainder of a $2.3 million state school construction grant IWCS had received in 2022, and an additional $2.4 million state grant the division received earlier this year. Coleman estimated at the School Board’s Dec. 12 meeting that the work would cost at most $1.4 million.

“It’s costing this county – taxpayers – zero dollars out of local taxpayer dollars,” Cramer said.

Coleman said the division was still working through details of the final payments. Once that happens, the School Board will be provided with an exact total cost.

The renovation will also allow the cutting of $2 million from the county’s capital improvement plan, which for many years has called for building a new central office near the county courthouse. The existing modular central office behind Westside dates to 2004.

Coleman estimated that had the division tried to build a 20,000-square-foot central office from the ground up, it would have cost $500 per square foot, or roughly $11 million, even without the warehouse.