Welcome to a brand new year and another fresh start!
As the Churchill County School District opened the school year last August, we entered with a fresh start of our own and set our sights on continuing excellent traditions while pushing ourselves to innovate and create learning environments for the future. We open 2019 with new goals, including preparing all learners to be life-ready and developing the many facets of the individual citizen for our community, our state, our country, and the world. As the demands of society change quickly, it is crucial that our students possess not only reading and math skills, but also critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity. Our graduates must be innovators, problem solvers, and global citizens who are prepared to be flexible and adaptable.
We are charged with ensuring that students possess the tools to be articulate, expressive thinkers and lifelong learners who are responsible and resilient. When students are engaged in their own learning and are surrounded by a safe environment and committed adults, they grab hold of the possibilities and achieve at high levels, academically and socially. Education is about providing students with situations to address challenges that we cannot predict, to use adaptive skills in order to tackle problems that we cannot expect, to maximize technology’s opportunities, and to respect and understand diverse backgrounds and beliefs.
As quickly as information multiplies, schools cannot cover the curriculum of the past. While maintaining rigorous programs that have been in place, schools must provide curriculum offerings that educate through a variety of delivery methods, including self-paced options, project-based learning, and work-based learning to name a few. We must provide various career pathways for students to investigate and consider as they select courses to pursue. We must integrate technology into our daily practices for not only efficiencies, but to design, create, and extend our thinking beyond traditional uses.
With all this in mind, we move forward as a system committed to excellence. It is my honor to serve all the learners of Churchill County, and I can’t wait to see what 2019 has in store!
-- Summer Stephens is the new Superintendent of the Churchill County School District, newly hired in April of 2018. She comes to us from a farm near Surprise, Nebraska, but has most recently resided in Upton, Wyoming. She and her husband Bert have three awesome daughters Elizabeth, Madeline, and Poppy and a new family member, Scooter. She once tried out for Teen Jeopardy where she met Alex Trebek, and has owned a catering and baking businesses with her sister called "Sweets on the Side."
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