Principal's Corner

Welcome to the 2024-25 school year at Decatur Middle School!  It is a honor to serve as your Principal. If you have visited our school district’s website, you will know that:

Good afternoon Decatur Middle Families!

My name is Phil Shults and I am the VERY PROUD Principal for Decatur Middle School.  

I come to Decatur Middle with almost 18 years of experience in IPS where I served as a Teacher, Department Head, Dean, AP, and Principal (most recently at Northwest Middle for five years).  Prior to that, I worked 10 years as a director for a non-profit organization in Florida developing leadership programs for middle school students.

My favorite part of being principal is the fact that I have fun every day.  I enjoy working with students, parents, teachers, and the larger school community in developing and growing our students.  I completely understand the impact that my behavior and attitude has on our students, our parents, and our school staff.  To further that, it is in each individual of our school community to understand the impact they have on each other as we all navigate the next 180 days of school.  

It is my hope that you find me modeling the behaviors that I expect from others: Creativity - try something new, Enthusiasm - show others your excitement and be supportive when concerns are raised, Openness - accept and understand different ideas (you don't have to agree with them!), and Reflectiveness - if you haven't done your best, find a new way of doing it.

To borrow from the Decatur Middle School Mission Statement, while students are at DMS they can expect to see our teachers and staff doing “whatever it takes to support and grow students’ social, emotional, and academic needs.”   

I can't begin to tell everyone how excited I am to be part of the Decatur school community.  I very much look forward to meeting parents and students soon!

Go HAWKS!

Phil Shults

Principal

Decatur Middle School

#DecaturProud