School superintendent sets the bar

Sisters School District's new superintendent Elaine Drakulich has high expectations for all of the district's staff - administrators, secretaries, custodians, bus drives, paraprofessionals and teachers.

Last Friday Drakulich outlined these expectations to the district's new hires during an orientation session at Sisters High School (see related story, page 18).

In categorizing her expectations Drakulich told The Nugget: "Some of them are what I call no-brainers, and some of them might be somewhat surprising."

Coming to work on time and being prepared with the goal of giving 100 percent every single day are at the top of Drakulich's list and fall into the category she calls "no-brainers."

She also feels that staff members serve as strong role models for students at all times. Whether in the classroom, the community, the cafeteria or parking lot or on the football field, staff should never forget that students look up to them.

A little more complicated is Drakulich's expectation for school district staff to develop what she calls a "higher relationship" with their students. Staff should maintain as a goal truly knowing every student, their families and connections.

"It relates back to if we know their interests, their aptitudes, we have an individual plan ... We can create programs or give experiences, at least, so that they will stay with us for the 12 years, and they will excel," Drakulich said.

When students like their teachers they work harder. When students know that their teachers and other staff members care about them, they want to be at school every day, she said.

According to Drakulich, in a school district the size of Sisters, staff have the opportunity and the ability to connect with families.

"You're not able to do that when you have 17,000, but we have 1,700. We can get to know the families," she said.

Drakulich expects each staff member to continually learn.

"I expect teachers and educators to be life-long learners, regularly learning new techniques," Drakulich said. "We're going to offer staff here, and not necessarily just teachers but a variety of staff, a variety of new techniques, and I expect them to take advantage of that."

According to Drakulich the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model already implemented within the district helps staff interact with and learn from one another.

"We have (through the PLC model) the mechanisms to be able to get together, to collaborate, to talk about what we are doing and how we can do it better, to compare students who might be problematic and are not moving as we think they should be academically...," Drakulich said.

Drakulich additionally expects staff to work on developing an individual plan for every student in the district. Although this goal is imposing, the benefits are significant.

Developing such a plan for each student is already required in high school, but for Drakulich this is not enough. She wants to see a plan for each student initiated in kindergarten. At this early age teachers and staff will start helping students identify interests and aptitudes. They will then provide children the opportunity to develop these areas of interest and proficiency.

Although developing such individual plans will take time and energy and will happen over time, they will contribute significantly in helping the district achieve excellence in education.

"They will insure that every student is successful," said Drakulich.