TRUSTEE
Michael Bates
Dr. Michael Bates was born in Germany into a U.S. Navy family that settled in Dunbar Township, Pennsylvania when he was 10 years old. He spent most of his childhood and young adulthood in southwestern PA and moved to Ohio in 1993. While this is his first opportunity in elected office, Dr. Bates has been in public service his entire adult life.
Dr. Bates has been a resident of Bainbridge Township since 2019, but he has served the people of the community as a teacher for the Kenston Schools for the past 25 years. Dr. Bates has taught first, second, and third grade at the elementary level along with seventh grade Social Studies and eighth grade English at the Middle School level. Along with his teaching responsibilities, he has held various leadership positions for Kenston. For Kenston Middle School, he has served as a grade-level Team Leader, Social Studies Content Leader, and Design Team Coordinator. At the district level, Dr. Bates has been on the District Design Team in the past and has served as the Chair of the Local Professional Development Committee for the past 17 years.
Dr. Bates is a graduate of Gannon University (B.A., 1988), St. Vincent Seminary (M.Div., 1991), John Carroll University (M.Ed., 1997), and University of Phoenix (Ed.D., 2010). He lives in Tanglewood with his wife Gretchen and his daughters Gaby and Lily, both students at Kenston. His son, David, is a recent graduate from Cleveland State University and currently lives in Columbus.