Superintendent unpacks 3 goals for leading NV

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series introducing Nodaway Valley and Cumberland-Anita-Massena shared school superintendent Dr. Pam Stangeland.

While Dr. Pam Stangeland’s entry plan involves listening, learning and leading, there are three core values that she will carry with her into putting that plan into practice.

Stangeland began July 1 as the shared superintendent of Nodaway Valley and Cumberland-Anita-Massena. Her April hire was the result of a wide search the districts embarked on together with the help of the search firm McPherson and Jacobson, LLC.

Pending stakeholder input from the listening and learning phases of her entry plan, Stangeland’s three core areas of emphasis will be communication, financial security and student achievement.

The superintendent said that overcommunication is the gateway to building trust. Very few people have ever asked for less communication, she said. In the public eye, that’s giving information when it is needed and being a consistent person and leader wherever she is.

Communicating with stakeholders has to be diversified over several mediums. While digital is the way many people prefer to receive information these days, Stangeland is a former journalism major and will write letters and newsletters also.

“I want people to have access to the information, the schedules; all the whats, and more importantly, the whys behind it,” Stangeland said. “When people don’t understand the why or don’t have the information, they make it up. At least they have something to fall back to and they can say ‘Wait, that’s not what this said.’ I want all members of the community to be really informed about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”

Many small rural school districts are struggling financially, but Stangeland applauds the way former superintendent Paul Croghan positioned Nodaway Valley fiscally.

Two main indicators of financial health are cash on hand and spending authority. Managing these takes a “balancing act” of spending when you need to and spending out of the right funding sources, she said.

“Part of my entry plan will be to do a financial audit so I know past practices, and we want to compare board policy. Sometimes board policies are conflicting with [what the legislature has done],” Stangeland said. “I want to make sure we’re not just looking at the next five years or the next 10 years, that we’re looking at the next 20-30 years ... that we have the facilities and infrastructure needed to move forward and flourish. I’m not OK with just surviving as a small school, I want our school district to be flourishing.”

The final piece is that effective teaching and learning are happening so student achievement is at the highest level it can be. Stangeland credits her background in curriculum, teaching and learning and differentiated instruction, which takes into account the varied ways that students learn, as reasons she’s excited to dig into this area of focus.

Reliable indicators that Nodaway Valley exceeds in this area will be if students are able to obtain jobs out of school at a high rate or go to college, but to also persist and reach finish lines on whatever path they select. Statewide data reflects that there is a gap between the amount of Iowa students who start college and those who finish.

Stangeland has also spent a lot of time working on the portrait of a graduate, which combines employability skills the school teaches with the actual values of employers.

“That really starts as early as pre-K and doing a marriage of that with the community so they know the skills we’re teaching and working toward and they can tell us the skills they value,” she said.

The superintendent said teachers saying “I taught, they just didn’t learn” doesn’t cut it anymore. Being able to hone in on all of the educational standards to find out which ones specific students lagged in is invaluable to each student ultimately succeeding.

“We need to ask how we can work with a multi-tiered system of support for students. Maybe the majority of a class didn’t get this one concept, so we’re going to work with them,” Stangeland said. “We react to that and proactively make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Classes start at Nodaway Valley and CAM Monday, Aug. 25. Between now and then, Stangeland is excited to hit the ground running, meeting people and leading both districts.

“I’m really excited to be here,” Stangeland said. “My family’s really excited to be here and the community has been so kind, gracious and welcoming.”