Stoughton takes on special projects in school district

After four years of successive deep budget cuts completely eliminated all special education support in the district office, there is once again someone to oversee all the complicated requirements of the system.

Becky Stoughton has taken the job as Director of Special Projects for the Sisters School District. A 15-year veteran of the Redmond School District, Stoughton brings a wide variety of experience to the special projects office.

Based at Sisters Middle School, Stoughton is responsible for special education, the TAG (talented and gifted) program, the ELL (English language learners, Title 3) program, and the legal requirements of IEP's (Individual Education Plan) and 504 plans. She will also be providing administrative support to the middle school's new principal, Marshal Jackson.

A fifth-generation Sequim, Washington native, Stoughton followed her mother and youngest brother to Bend when her mother remarried a Bend insurance executive after Stoughton's father passed away. Raised in a Northwest logging and fishing tradition, Central Oregon seemed a good fit. Stoughton returned to teach at her old grammar school when she finished her credential work in Bellingham, and then moved to her job in Redmond as a kindergarten teacher in 1999.

During the school budget crunch, the Redmond School District used school development funds to train a number of teachers including Stoughton to become teacher coaches. As the budget cuts got deeper, Becky was soon the only coach left in the district.

"I believe in the education process," said Stoughton. "I believe in what we are doing for kids. I just sometimes feel that teachers don't have the repertoire or the depth of knowledge to know where to go to get things. That's why I believe in the coaching piece.

"They would call me up and say 'Can you facilitate our team so that we can get to the nitty-gritty of what we need to do?'" continued Stoughton. "That's what I've been doing in Redmond and throughout the state for the last seven years."

A good deal of the coaching work involved the alignment of the teachers' work to state and federal standards and best practices. As a result of this coaching work, Stoughton also became involved in the statewide Oregon Data Project. This project worked to bring test data to bear in solving class room challenges, and it took Stoughton all over the state as a trainer and a coach.

As the Common Core national standards are being implemented over the next several years nationally and in Oregon, Stoughton has been designated as a statewide trainer/coach for the Common Core standards.

"Bringing forward the understanding and the knowledge of what those standards say, not just with the teachers but within the community, making it a collaborative effort, that is the charter that Jim Golden has given me," said Stoughton.

Stoughton's arrival should also take some of the extended load off superintendent Jim Golden, freeing him up to do more innovating for the future of Sisters schools. During the last four years of major school budget cuts, Golden has used his training and background in special education to personally cover the in-depth legal requirements of the district's special education program. He has also been acting as the de facto principal of Sisters Elementary School after being forced to eliminate both the special education director and principal positions.

Sisters Elementary School is now covered by new principal Mark Stewart, who had been the principal at Sisters Middle School since August of 2010.