One year in and Renton School District Superintendent Merri Rieger says she’s learned a lot and enjoyed the experience she’s gained from serving Renton schools and the community.
The Renton Reporter asked Rieger to reflect on her first year leading Renton schools and these were her responses:
1. What has stood out the most about the district in terms of its difference to others where you have served?
The Renton Community and its many partnerships with Renton Schools is truly amazing. The support each of our community partners, services groups, city governments, businesses, foundations and faith-based organizations is so important to ensuring our students get quality learning experiences and opportunities inside and outside of the classroom. The collaboration between each of the partners is what is really impressive. So many working together to support students, families and staff! Because of this strong community support, our district is able to offer extended learning and support opportunities after school and throughout the summer.
2. What unique challenges does the Renton School District have?
I’m not sure there are specific unique challenges for Renton School District that our neighboring districts may not also be experiencing. What I do see, are opportunities to learn from the rich diverseness of the families and students we serve. I believe diversity is a strength and brings a richness to the learning for every student and adult. Through increasing outreaching to and learning from our families and students we can strengthen our actions and strategies to ensure that every child has access to learning at high levels.
3. What have you been able to accomplish or start this first year in office?
Learning more deeply about the Renton School community and all the resources available to support the Vision of the district: High quality instruction and learning for EVERY child, EVERY day, in EVERY classroom and environment. As a learning community, we are continually analyzing our data and what actions we are taking that is resulting in increased student achievement. The commitment of staff to continually explore how we might expand those successful actions to reach even more students across the district. There is a great team of educational professionals working throughout the Renton School system to support students and families grow and succeed.
4. What do you hope to get to next year?
I am looking forward to continuing our work to support teachers and principals and support staff in the implementation of Common Core and Next Generation State Standards. I am looking forward to successfully implementing free Full Day Kindergarten in every elementary school. I am looking forward to continuing our work to support learners who need additional time and/or different instructional strategies to master core learning skills and standards. I am also looking forward to the continued commitment of staff to ensure learners who are meeting standards have avenues and options to accelerate their learning. And finally, I am looking forward to continuing and expanding our community, business, government and post high school career partnerships.
5. Do you have a favorite memory or activity that you participated in this past year?
There are so many memories that I hold as “favorites” – the bus drivers doing their safety checks and heading out at the break of dawn on the first day of school, watching teachers bring learning alive for their students, seeing the excitement and joy on student’s faces as they share what they are learning, seeing our graduates walk across the graduation stage, seeing the pride on parents and family members faces as they watch their child perform both in the classroom and through co-curricular experiences, the pride our nutrition services and custodial team members take in making sure our students have clean and safe places to learn and nutritional meals to fuel their bodies, watching community members mentor students, provide supplies and dictionaries, and so much more. I just can’t pick one favorite memory.
