Montgomery County Superintendent Stephanie Harris, second from left, stands with Chris Shaw, assistant principal at Mapleton Elementary, middle, and cheerleaders from Montgomery County High School for the school’s Opening Day celebration this year. Photo courtesy of Montgomery County Schools.
New Montgomery County Superintendent Stephanie Harris has been doing more to highlight excellence in the district through her weekly spotlight series.
During the weekly “Everyday Excellence” video series, Harris spotlights students, staff members, community partners and other people showing greatness in the school system.
The videos, about a minute in length, are posted on the Montgomery County Schools Facebook page. She recently put the attention on the school band director, student award winners at the state fair, their school resource officer (SRO) and police force.
“My vision is all around cultivating excellence in everything we do,” Harris said. “It’s another way of communicating with my parents and with our community because we share those videos out with the community as well.”
Harris has worked in Montgomery County for her entire 26-year career in education. She has been an elementary teacher, an instructional coach and principal of Mapleton Elementary School. She moved to the district office 11 years ago where she was director of elementary schools, director of curriculum instruction and assessment, then chief academic officer and assistant superintendent.
She has a master’s degree in school counseling and another master’s in instructional leadership, both from Morehead State University, and a doctorate in education leadership from the University of the Cumberlands.
“You can’t have a strong community without a strong school system,” Harris said. “You can’t have a strong school system without a strong community. It’s a symbiotic relationship there.”
In terms of priorities for the district, Harris said she is focused on student achievement in the areas of reading, literacy and math, implementing high-quality instructional resources and bringing the district’s portrait of a learner to life. As part of that, she said she wants to increase vibrant learning experiences for students.
As part of developing the district’s profile of a learner, Harris said they’ve been following a three-year plan around implementing competencies around the student experience. The goal is to have defenses of learning where students defend those competencies.
At the elementary level, one of the competencies in the district’s profile of a learner is about being an engaged citizen. Students participate in what is called an “engaged citizen day” where they go out to learn from members of the community. Some students go to animal shelters, the fire department, the police station and other places to ask questions. Students then write about their experiences and what they learned.
“Instead of just sitting and doing a writing piece about something, they actually get to go out and live that,” Harris said. “We’re doing just a lot of things like that with community partners out there, just bringing those experiences to life, making them meaningful to students; not just sitting and reading about it in a textbook, but (learning) how does that really apply to us in real life?”
Montgomery County also has its own school farm, the Chenault Farm. When students learn about things in their agriculture classes, they apply those skills at the farm.
Harris said she looks forward to building more relationships with people in the district, making sure every person in the district feels like they’re a part of a family.
“We can’t run our schools without our support staff – from our bus drivers to our custodians to our SROs (school resource officers), to our nutrition staff, childcare – they all play a role in removing barriers and making our education accessible for our students and families,” Harris said. “We just have a whatever-it-takes mentality in Montgomery County. Continuing that on is one of the things that’s very important to me, that everybody feels like they’re a part of this family and this team.”
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