By Mary Owen
Stayton Elementary School starts the school year with a new principal.
“I am confident in my ability to be a strong leader and look forward to building strong relationships with the staff, students, parents and community,” said Wendy Moore, who comes to the North Santiam School District from the Salem-Keizer School District.
Moore calls herself a “mother, wife, sister, aunt, friend and educator.” Married 25 years to her husband, Tom, she is mom to two daughters, Tommi, 19, a student at the University of Oregon, and Jessica, 15, a sophomore at McNary High School in Keizer.
Moore decided to go into the education field when her youngest daughter was born to have a job more conducive to raising a family. She received her bachelor’s degree from Simpson University in 2001, focusing on early childhood education, elementary education K-5, early language development and English language learners.
“I began my teaching career in California, and then my husband’s job transferred us to Salem,” Moore said. “I got a teaching position at Miller Elementary in 2002, and have worked there until I came to SES.”
Moore taught grades 1-4 at Miller, but mainly first and second. She also served as an instructional coach and a teacher leader. She helped start the Professional Learning Communities at Miller by writing grants to send staff to trainings and facilitating grade-level teams.
“I have worked on various district teams helping to deconstruct standards,” she said. “I decided to go back and get my masters in administration after going to a PLC conference. At that conference, I watched administrator after administrator get up and talk about the wonderful things they were doing at their school. I was motivated to want to do more.
“I knew I had control over what was happening in my classroom, but felt like I had little control over anything else,” added Moore, who earned her administrative degree from Concordia University in 2011. “I was seeing too many students falling between the cracks and wanted to have a bigger impact on student achievement.”
Moore also wanted her first principalship to be in a small district where she could get to know the community.
“I grew up in a small town very similar to Stayton, and I enjoy the closeness of the community,” she said. “My second reason for coming to Stayton Elementary is the fact that it is a K-3 school. My strength has always been in primary instruction, especially literacy instruction.”
Moore said SES is “an incredibly strong school in the work they are doing in their PLC’s. They are looking at Common Core Standards to ensure their instructional practices are aligning with these standards. They are writing common formative assessments, which helps to drive their instruction and identify struggling learners.”
Moore’s challenge will be to learn the culture of the school and district policies on top of learning a new job.
“My hope is to take this year to get to know the school climate and culture, to really learn the ins and outs of the school,” she said. “I want to take note of the things we are doing really well and look at the things that need to be adjusted. My number one priority is to provide a safe learning for students and a safe working environment for our staff.”
Moore said she is committed to SES students and their achievement.
“I look forward to getting to know this community, and I feel incredibly honored to be the principal of SES,” she said.
