June 9th Part 1, Interview of Superintendent Dr. Leatha Williams

We recently sat down with Pocahontas School Superintendent Dr. Leatha Williams for a lengthy interview. Dr. Williams asked us for an opportunity to explain to the community her goals and vision for the schools

Because of the length of this interview, we will present it over several news stories.

Dr. Williams, as you reflect on your first year of leadership in Pocahontas County, what are your personal growth points, and what do you see as the district’s growth points moving forward?

“I think my growth point has to be recognizing the importance of balancing our immediate challenges with our long-term vision,” answered Dr. Williams. “ Over the past year, much of my focus has been dedicated to navigating intervention requirements, addressing compliance expectations from the West Virginia Board of Education, and building a stable system for our staff, and our students, and for our community to make sure we are continuing the progress of independence from the West Virginia Board of Education and the West Virginia Department of Education. I think that is really important. But while I believe those efforts were necessary and important, they have also reinforced to me maintaining a relationship that has a clear focus that showcases where we are heading in our school system, and communicating that with the public. While our path presented a great deal of time at board meetings and at Central Office, working with staff and principals on training them. Telling them, ‘This is our data points, these are the expectations, here is how we are going to get there, and these are the steps we are going to take as we collaborate and move forward together.’”

“I’ve just haven’t had enough time in the day to get out and build relationships with community partnerships and community organizations. So, I think getting out into the community, working with community organizations, working with community leaders, developing that same shared vision- that ‘Stronger Together’ slogan and really making it the next part of the action process. I think that’s a growth point for me. As we, as a District, move beyond the most difficult phase of intervention, which was compliance -looking at where we were not compliant and getting off of state intervention, I think that the next part for us as a District is to look at what ‘excellence’ means for Pocahontas County Schools.”

“In West Virginia, they have what is called ‘an effective school’s framework’ and that reminds us that successful schools have a common shared vision, which I just talked about. They understand how they are going to support each other; how they are going to support students; how they are going to support family; and how they are going to be an integrated part of the community. So my goal for the district, as I am working on my goal to build relationships with community organizations and community leaders, is to foster that shared understanding  between our schools and our school communities. So, I think that is a great growth point for us as a collected whole.”

“Now, how do I come up with those growth points?  Where do I get this information that this is a growth point form me, and this is a growth point for our schools? About seven weeks ago, I worked with all the district office staff and all the principals on all those standards for highly effective schools. There’s actually seven of them. And we reflected on where we are and where we want to be. And, as a collective group, we decided here at the district office, that we needed to work on family and community engagement. Now, engagement and involvement are two different things. Being involved -you go to a basketball game and you are involved. Being engaged is understanding the policies, the procedures, and the expectations, and helping reinforce those and solve any problems. For example: we have a problem district-wide and we have a problem at each of our schools with students being chronically absent. So how do we engage our community partnerships, our community leaders, and our school communities in helping us increase student attendance which will increase student achievement, which will increase morale which will build culture? So, how do we do that together? That is something that we believe we need here at the district level and that’s something that each of the schools’ staff work with their principals on those standards. They believe it is important to build those relationships and that understanding of engagement to solve problems at the school level. So, I think that is a growth point for all of us. It is how do we work together; how do we build a shared mission, a shared vision, and how do we problem solve when major issues come up. And one of those issues that we really need to focus on and work around is getting our student to school.”

Be sure to stay tuned to Allegheny Mountain Radio for the next part of this enlightening interview.