by Natasha L. Adams, Superintendent, and CEO
West Clermont Schools
You’ve made it! This is the last blog in our series on investing for success. Can you guess what the final piece of the puzzle in our investment plan is? If you guessed that it has something to do with leadership, you are correct. We must invest in our leaders in order to accomplish the level of success we’re aiming to attain.
We are focused on creating the conditions necessary for teachers to excel and students to succeed by developing strong leaders who empower their teams. Our bold, future-focused vision requires courageous leaders who can implement change in a complex school system with a lot of moving parts and competing priorities.
Our leaders must think big and start small by building a collaborative learning culture for students. Our story of investment has now come full circle. By first investing in people, we have ensured we have caring adults and leaders within our organization who are committed to continuous improvement and challenging the status quo.
We’ve all been through a lot of change in the last few years – some good, some bad. Change is harder for some of us than others, but I encourage you to remember the following:
- Any change takes time and requires risk-taking and a willingness to learn.
- Fear of change is real and is why we must support each other.
- Changing too much too fast can result in setbacks. Our goal is to go slow so that we can go fast.
- Change often results in feelings of inadequacy for those who feel they can’t keep up or gain the skills needed to ride the wave of change. We’re here to make sure no one gets left behind.
At West Clermont, we are striving to maximize all the good we can from any change (intentional or unintentional, e.g., COVID-19) that comes our way so that we can be better than we were before. The investments we’ve reviewed the last few weeks will enable success by helping us live out our mission: committing to excellence with every learner, every day, every way.
