What She's Accomplished in Four Years:

Read a bit more about some of the important priorities that she has helped to champion to make Staunton City Schools a better place to learn and work.

Advocacy

Advocacy is at the root of change in public education. We rely on the support of local, state, and federal leaders to enact changes that will help our school division. As a school board member Kristin worked to:

Create legislative priorites - to determine which issues require our support or opposition.

Initiate "Bring your Legislator to School Month" in November - have local and state legislators tour our schools and have one on one conversations to advocate for our students and staff.

Attend local City Council meetings to speak to topics that affect our schools such as budgets, infrastructure needs, and new housing development challenges.

Retention and Recruitment of Staff

Our staff are our greatest resource and one of
the reasons why we have made such impressive
academic improvements. Kristin helped to complete the following:

Ensuring our staff raises are at or above the regional average - making staff salaries a number one budget prioritiy.

Increased coaching stipends at Shelburne and Staunton High.

Approved higher pay scales for veteran teachers and voted to implement a salary study to ensure that our staff are compensated at or above surrounding divisions in all aspects.

Advocated for one additional administrator at Shelburne, Staunton High, Bessie and McSwain to assist with increasing enrollment.

Hired and onboarded new superintendent through his first year while serving as chair.

Academic Success

Our students have made trememdous improvements in their academic outcomes over the past few years and have now returned to pre-Covid (or above) levels of success. These successes do not happen in a vacuum - the hard work of our students combined with our exceptional staff and administrators is the key. Kristin was happy to help to champion the following successes:

Was board member as our schools climbed to 35th out of 131 school divisions based on Virginia SOL Scores. SCS has moved up 70 places in the last 7 years - the highest growth of any school division in Virginia.

Staunton High School On-time graduation rate at or above Virginia average for the last three years.

Staunton High and McSwain receive "distinguished" ranking in the new accredidation system.

McSwain elementary school ranks 23rd of all elementary schools in Virginia.

All schools are accredited for the first time.

Continued to provide free breakfast and lunch for all students the past four years.

Helped to develop Empower 2030: A New Strategic Plan with the previous strategic plan having a very high rate of completion.

Improved communication

Made community awareness and communication a priority. One of the first things done during her term was advocating for a communication-specific role, which led to Ruth Jones-Turner being hired as a full time communication specialist. Last year a part time communications position was also added.

Made community partnerships a priority- reached out to and advocated for communication between school leaders and community members.

Advocated for transparency at meetings-our first work session of the month is now live-streamed versus being held upstairs without accessibility online.

Initiated a program to assign a school board member to attend PTA meetings and report on happenings to keep public informed and to make members more visible and accessible.

Communication helps to tell the story of what is happening within Staunton City Schools and keeps our school and broader community informed. This was a huge priority during Kristin's first term with her speaheading the following changes:

Safety and Modern Infrastructure

Completed a partial renovation of Shelburne including creating new career and technical education classrooms, outdoor learning classrooms, and science labs.

Completed purchase of a new operations center. Allowing the maintance operations to move from the basement of Shelburne into a new building and the busses to be worked on and housed in a climate controlled, safe location for staff.

Advocated for further revocations for Shelburne directly to City Council.

Approved learning cottages at McSwain to help reduce overcrowding and improve student to teacher ratios.

Advocated for more clubs/ after school activities to allow all students to have options for inclusion. Partnered with On the Road Collaborative to provide after school options at Shelburne.

Helped to create a new gender inclusive PREP option at Shelburne.

Supporting an inclusive environment for all students.

Our students and staff deserve to be safe while working and learning in modern environments that are conducive to the best outcomes. Kristin has been a part of the following initiatives during her term: