Superintendent says teamwork is key to school district’s goals superindentent

Lance, please give us a short summary of your experience, schooling and interest in education.
I taught 2nd, 4th and 5th grades at W. Russel Todd School in Uintah School District. That school no longer exists. In its place is Eagle View Elementary. I served students from the western side of the county including many students from the Ute reservation. I loved my experience there and much of who I am as an educator came from learning to ensure high levels of learning even in the most dire of circumstances. 
At the age of 29 I became principal of Monticello Elementary School. I served as supervisor to several of the teachers who taught me when I went to the same elementary school as a child. 
It was a wonderful experience. I learned how to lead change efforts. The staff and I tried many different things to improve student learning.  Some of them worked and some of them didn’t.  We learned even more from our failures than our successes. 
Personally, I developed a philosophy about how to move an organization forward to improvement. I later served as the San Juan School District Elementary Supervisor. Here I worked with the elementary schools to improve collaboration between teachers and ensure that research-based practices were being implemented. 
I was the direct supervisor of all the elementary school principals. The family and I then moved to Vernal where I was the principal of Ashley Elementary School. At this school, the staff and I were able to put into practice many of the things I had been learning and we saw great improvement in a very short time. 
Later, I was selected to serve as the human resources director for Uintah School District. In this position I provided training to teachers and principals, mentored principals, and managed the policies and personnel issues that came up. I feel this was a great training ground for the role of superintendent due to the opportunity to work closely with Superintendent Dockins and the school board.  
As for my schooling, I earned an associate degree from College of Eastern Utah in Price followed by a bachelor degree from Southern Utah University in Cedar City and a masters degree from Utah State University (Uintah Basin Extention).  Later, I earned a PhD from USU.  My doctoral dissertation research dealt with the instructional planning and instructional delivery of expert teachers.  My philosophy of instruction has been impacted by my study of the research conducted by others as well as the research I conducted myself through USU.  
What is your vision for the Carbon School District? How does this vision impact the district, the schools, and the students?
There are three things Carbon School District has going for it. 
First, they have a supportive, well informed and well functioning school board who knows their role and who love the school district and the community. 
Second, the principals at each of the buildings are outstanding educators who are not afraid of change and who are willing to embrace ways of working that may be different from what has been done in the past. This forward thinking combined with a “can do” attitude will take the district to the next level. 
Third, the teachers and support staff are workers.  They are willing to put in whatever time and energy is necessary to get the job done. It is great to know that with any change or improvement plan I put forward, I will not have to ask people to work harder. They already work plenty hard.  In fact, in some cases, we might have people who work too hard.  My vision involves working smarter, not harder.
My vision for Carbon School District has been formulating over the last several months. It is strange to think I started working here on August 1st not even three months ago. However, in those three months I have been able to learn a lot about the wonderful work that is being done and to see where we might need to make some adjustments to move forward. My vision can be explained in three parts. I’ll do my best to explain below.
Collaboration is Key
I have seen what can be accomplished by one person working in isolation compared to a group of people focused on one goal collaborating effectively. The difference is astronomical. It is not natural nor is it easy for adults to collaborate effectively. However, it is essential that we learn how to collaborate effectively and then do it. Much of my work will be to help teacher teams to collaborate effectively.
Reading
There is no skill more critical to the future of our children than being able to read well.  In spite of all of the amazing efforts of our schools, many of our students enter the middle schools reading far below grade level.  We only know this because the middle schools see that some students can’t keep up.  They do some screening assessments and learn that many are not reading at grade level. 
The problem here is that in our elementary schools we do not currently know exactly what reading level our students are reading on. We know when they are above grade level, on grade level, or below grade level but that does not tell us a reading level. Each grade has many different levels of reading corresponding to it. 
Typically, schools use a scale of A-Z to identify the reading level for a student.  Students leaving 5th grade should be reading on level X-Z.  We must know what reading level every elementary student is currently reading on. This will require a lot of time, funds and training to be able to do effectively. Once we have that information, we will be able to take the next step and focus on reading progress through research-based practices.
Career Pathways
Currently it is possible for students to graduate from Carbon High School with an associates degree or a certificate from a career pathway.  However, it is very challenging to do because the map of how to do it is not clear. We want to provide many pathways to certificates. 
However, we recognize that in order to help students to be employable out of high school, those pathways must be established starting at the 9th grade. Currently, students have choices to make about electives every year, semester, or quarter. 
Often, these decisions are made without any real purpose. We want to work to structure our system so that middle school students come to the high school already prepared and experienced enough to make a decision regarding which pathway they want to follow.  We want them to make that one decision which places them on a pathway to a certificate or a degree. 
Governor Herbert’s goal for Utah is to have 66 percent of Utah’s adult population in possession of a certificate or a degree.  We think we can accomplish that within our public school system with the cooperation of USU Eastern. 
We think 15 percent of our students could graduate from high school with an associate degree.  We also think 51 percent of our students could graduate from high school with a certificate of some kind.  This can’t happen if we can’t give our students a 9th grade through 12th grade outline of classes that will lead to the goal. This can’t happen if our students are not leaving the middle schools with the experience and knowledge to be able to choose and start a pathway. We can’t accomplish this if our elementary schools are not sending students to the middle schools who are reading at or above grade level. It all works together and we are all parts of one whole.