Explore the unique skills needed for principals in rural and mixed districts in this episode of AACTE PRESENTS: Presents and Sustaining School Principals. District leaders highlight their challenges, chief amongst them hiring and retaining trained principals. Learn about successful programs preventing burnout, including an aspiring administrator initiative, gain insights from one superintendent’s experiences in a small rural district, and reflect on applications of principal pipeline research like the Wallace Foundation and Policy Study Associate’s Report: Planning and Developing Principal Pipelines: Approaches, Opportunities, and Challenges. For resources related to principal pipelines, reference this episode’s show notes or this show’s webpage at aacte.org. Guest, Daniel Melendrez is the Superintendent of Genoa-Hugo School District in Hugo, CO. He has 20+ years in education and 11 years of administrative experience at both middle and high school. His leadership style is team oriented, worldly, innovative, and hardworking with a think outside the box mentality. He is dedicated to his district’s “we are in this together” culture that creates a safe and positive environment for students and staff loaded with quality educational opportunities. Traci Gile Guest, Dr. Traci Gile is currently the assistant superintendent of schools in Poudre School District (PSD) and has served in this role since January 202. As the assistant superintendent, she was a leader on the PSD Learning Services team, consisting of seven district departments. She also developed high-quality educational opportunities for PreK-12 students and supervised leaders of PSD’s 30 elementary schools and the PSD Early Childhood Education program. Dr. Gile was previously the principal at Lopez Elementary for eight years. During her time there, she collaborated with school staff to become Colorado’s first Leader in Me Lighthouse School. She also championed student leadership and student-led community service projects. Dr. Gile came to PSD from Thompson School District, where she was a principal at Mary Blair Elementary School and the professional development coordinator. Dr. Gile also has a long history working as an adjunct faculty member at Colorado State University (CSU) in the school leadership program at the Center for Educator Preparation. As an adjunct faculty member at CSU, Dr. Gile co-developed the School Leadership Institute alongside faculty members from the Center for Educator Preparation to provide mentoring and professional development for novice educational leaders. Dr. Gile has a doctorate in Philosophy with an emphasis in educational leadership and human resource studies.
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21 mins