About the Park R-3 School District
Park R-3 School District in Estes Park, Colorado, serves approximately 1,300 students in pre-K through grade 12. At 7,200 feet elevation, the town is commonly known as the “gateway to the Rocky Mountains” and relies heavily on summer tourism. In this picturesque Colorado setting, it is common for students to encounter deer, mountain lions, and big horn sheep. Once, the football field was even crowded with elk.

However, not everything about Estes Park and the Park R-3 School District has been so idyllic. The district recently experienced the organizational and logistical chaos of management turnover at the highest level. In less than two school years, one superintendent, whose tenure spanned eight years, was sent to jail for embezzlement and his replacement was quickly recognized as a poor fit for the position. While parents and other community members publicly expressed their loss of trust and confidence in district leadership, the morale among administrators and staff was spiraling downward.

The Park R-3 School District found itself under the scrutiny of the community and knew that an effective change was needed to rebuild its reputation and put the focus on students and education instead of problems with administration.

About Linda Chapman
While the school board was busy conducting a lengthy, national search for a superintendent, Linda Chapman was working diligently, effectively, and patiently as the district’s director of curriculum and instruction services. She was recently promoted to lead the district as superintendent. School Board President Larry Pesses explains, “We mistakenly overlooked Linda a couple of years ago and luckily, we did not lose her to the many neighboring districts that were trying to recruit her. We're not the only ones that realized how incredibly talented, incredibly competent, and incredibly smart Linda is.”

Chapman is a twenty-four year educator and the first woman to hold the position. After spending seventeen years teaching Spanish at Estes Park High School and another five as the district’s curriculum director, Chapman brings an intimate knowledge of the students, community, and district with her in her new position.

Student and Staff Challenges
Chapman, ready for the challenge, thoroughly understood her district’s unique needs. Of the 1,300 students in this rural area, approximately 25% received free or reduced-priced lunches, 15% are Hispanic, 10% are special education students, 8% are Title 1 students, and of the 11% that are English language learners, most have recently immigrated. In addition, the high cost of living in the area makes it difficult to draw new, qualified teachers—making staff retention and development imperative. Ongoing funding challenges, combined with the management style of past superintendents, have left the entire district concerned and mistrustful.

New Approaches
These challenges created an urgent need for district renewal. Under Chapman’s leadership, the district agreed to focus on three key areas: communication, achievement, and school climate. All problems could not be addressed at once, and Chapman believed that tending to these three core areas would provide a foundation on which to build and move forward.

Communication
Often, new superintendents can feel pressure from school boards to show immediate progress and in doing so, may stymie their own efforts by making sweeping changes in an autocratic style. Instead of falling into the same trap, Chapman introduced the idea of establishing professional learning communities that focus on improving student achievement by giving stakeholders a voice. Under the guidance of Chapman, the district and school board placed new importance on consensus building, where the contributions of teachers, parents, and staff are all considered.

This approach takes its cues from Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement by Richard Dufour and Robert E. Eaker, a book that offers research-based recommendations for continuously improving school performance. To help bring these concepts to life, Chapman bought multiple copies for staff, parents, and any other community member to borrow and join her commitment to lead district-wide excellence. This offer is publicized on the district website.

Achievement
Chapman recognized the value that an innovative, web-based curriculum mapping tool would offer her district. The robust tool allows users to create, edit, search, and view curriculum maps from any computer with an Internet connection, providing a resource for collaboration across entire curriculum departments, teachers, and parents alike. “Our curriculum is alive and changing, while teachers benefit from a mini-source of professional development,” Chapman noted.

With this tool, teachers can communicate with other teachers facing the same instructional challenges and obstacles. As a way to uncover best practices in real time, teachers record notes through the web interface—sharing successful differentiated practices to help students succeed and enabling curriculum maps to evolve with “live” classroom data.

Chapman added, “I know how painful it is to work on a committee to develop a curriculum guide, then have it sit on a shelf.” This frustration can extend into classrooms when teachers feel pressure to meet district mandates with little peer-to-peer support and few opportunities to provide decision-makers with constructive feedback.

Curriculum teams and individual teachers can view what others are doing in school, to determine how their coursework fits into the big picture and help identify gaps and crossover learning opportunities. For example, science teachers can find out when math classes will study fractions, just by clicking on the tool.

In addition, this tool allows the district to engage parents with their child’s education and helps renew faith in the school system. Parents can access curriculum maps to see what their child is learning and when. “Parents will be able to see everything their child will be doing . . . from what project they will be working on in art class to who their guest speaker will be in November,” Chapman explained.

School climate
Chapman experienced the aftermath of others’ mistakes, and made a conscious decision to improve morale and encourage a positive environment for both students and teachers.

Prior to setting the budget for the year, one of Chapman’s first moves was to grant a 5% raise to those who would be most involved in implementing changes—the teachers. In addition, Chapman approached the common challenge of student discipline—a sensitive, but significant factor in student learning and teacher burnout—with a supportive style.

The district adopted the Positive Behavior Initiative, a program originally developed by the Colorado Department of Education. The initiative focuses on the expectation of positive behavior rather than on the punishment of negative behavior, but it does not eliminate discipline when necessary. Part of the district’s spin on the framework is ROARS, an acronym for Responsibility, On time, Attentive, Respectful, and Safe. ROARS sets guidelines for what positive behavior looks like using the bobcat, the mascot of Estes Park. “When kids know what is expected of them, they are happier and learn more,” Chapman explained. “Here, we are showing them the positive behavior we know they can and will exhibit in the lunch room, in the bus line, and in other situations.” In alignment with this, the district’s code of conduct was rewritten and a discipline matrix was created to address infractions. Chapman provided an example of disciplinary action applied to a ROARS offender, “If a student is consistently late, the discipline may be that he or she attends a ROARS lunch where the importance of being on time is discussed.”

Continuous Learning
Chapman stresses that engaging in the “continuous process of learning” is a crucial part of being successful as a student, a teacher, and a superintendent. She has found that her experience as curriculum director has been extremely helpful to her in her new position. In fact, she believes that today, superintendents need to have a broad base knowledge of curriculum and instruction to earn respect from peers and the general public. “In the past, you could get by with being a good manager, but now it is essential to understand the importance of professional development, curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Often, you are called on to be an expert in these areas.”

Dr. BJ Stone, director of curriculum and professional development at Weld County School District RE-1, watched Chapman in multiple roles as a fellow member of the Northern Colorado Learning Consortium. Stone noted, “Linda shares as much as she learns to help neighboring districts. If she is doing something, we all know it’s something worth paying attention to, and we take a closer look.”

Conclusion
Chapman inherited many district challenges. However, her leadership and interpersonal skills, combined with her curriculum expertise and innovative school improvement programs, are all poised to bring the Park R-3 School District beyond the tumultuous times it has experienced in the past several years. Pesses shared, “I don't know anyone who could have stepped into this district, which was a near-train wreck, with as much success. She jumped into the fire, and in short order, has put things in place.”

Stone adds, “Linda is an inspiration to women in leadership. It’s been wonderful to see such a genuinely wonderful human being, who is so deserving and so able, take the helm of a school district. It’s not easy to do within the same organization. Her ability to gain the trust and respect of her peers speaks volumes to her abilities.”