School leaders have their first days, too

COEUR d’ALENE — It wasn’t just the first day back to school for students at the Coeur d’Alene School District yesterday. Four of the district’s schools welcomed new leaders on Tuesday. As they embarked upon the new year, the new principals struck notes of optimism, determination, and realism based on experience.

Jody Hiltenbrand became Dalton Elementary School’s newest principal on Tuesday. The former Canfield Middle School assistant principal said the transition from junior high to elementary brought new opportunities and new challenges. She credited the school community for making the start of the school year “a really cool experience.” Parents, students, and staff brought her flowers, coffee, and have been wonderful to her, she said.

On the flip side, Dalton underwent a near-complete remodel over the summer break, she explained, which added to the hectic pace of learning the ropes at the new job.

“It’s been a little crazy, and really exciting,” she said. “I’m learning many, many things each day.”

Lisa Hoffman is Skyway Elementary School’s new principal. She’s not the new girl on the block, but she’s new to the job. Last year she served as its assistant principal and served in a teammate role with her predecessor, which made the transition to her new role much easier, she said. On the first day of her first school year as a school chief, she greeted parents and students with elan.

Things have changed since Bret Heller graduated Coeur d’Alene High School in 1993, he said. Nonetheless, his first day on the job as CHS principal went really well.

“Students know the routine pretty well, staff has been amazing, everything was running like a well-oiled machine,” he said.

He was grateful to be able to help kids out, and only occasionally had to ask fellow staff members for answers to questions.

Safety was one of Hiltenbrand’s primary considerations coming into the new school year.

“Safety is probably my most important job here because if it’s not safe, then learning doesn’t take place. These parents loan their kids to us each day, and it’s a tremendous responsibility.”

Her husband is a fireman, so she looks closely at fire risks. In addition, she wants to streamline how other safety risks are handled.

Dalton is unique in that each classroom has an exit, thus preventing students from having to use hallways to exit the building, she explained. She planned to conduct several lockdown drills later this year. Hoffman planned to begin lockdown drills a few weeks into the school year. Parents will be notified before they take place, she added. All staff members watched a video on safety procedures during professional development time earlier this summer, said Hoffman. Heller said the school and district will work to make CHS as secure as possible, and added that he is working to identify areas in the school that need changes.

The new principals were confident that implementing the school district’s cellphone policy would not pose much difficulty. Heller said teachers would set aside time today to go over the cellphone policy with students. “This time of year is the hardest because kids are used to having them in their hands” all the time, he explained. However, with the passage of time they would adjust to keeping them silent and out of reach during class periods, he said. Hoffman said she respected parents’ desire to be able to reach their kids via cellphones before or after school. However, she said that if students needed to use a phone during the school day, they would need to use the telephone in the school office. Hiltenbrand said she would reach out to parents of her older students to advise them to postpone purchases of smartphones for their students, or at least to closely monitor their usage. As the resident disciplinarian at Canfield for the past three years, she saw problems crop up with students’ smartphones when parental oversight was lacking.

The new school leaders set goals for themselves and their school communities. Hoffman said she wants to provide her staff with opportunities to meet their full potential, to build relationships with her students, and prioritize student achievement.

“We want to focus on creating an excitement for learning” that helps students build resiliency and grit, she said.

Heller said his focus would be on creating a “really safe, positive, supportive school culture” that makes CHS “a place where people want to come to school and to work.” In addition, he wants to ensure that no matter which teacher a student is assigned to, that students get the same curriculum and level of instruction. He said he is working with teachers to deliver a “guaranteed and viable curriculum in every classroom.” Equipping teachers with strategies to keep students engaged with their course content will also be a big goal at CHS, Heller said.

“The saying, ‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care’ is true for adults as well as kids,” said Hiltenbrand. She made an effort to take teachers out to coffee earlier this summer and said her biggest priority is on building relationships in the Dalton community. She speaks from experience as a Dalton parent herself. She has a second-grader and a fourth-grader at the school.

In addition, the school has a commitment to continual improvement, said the new principal. She wants to model that and encourage everyone from students to herself to have a growth mindset. Most importantly though, she wants to focus on teaching and learning. Schools take on a plethora of tasks that are peripheral, she explained. She aims to find the right balance and focus on teaching and learning.

Woodland Middle School’s new principal, Mike Lindquist, could not be reached for comment.

District spokesman Scott Maben said as of Tuesday, total student enrollment was up approximately 200 students from last year. The district reported enrollment of 5,142 elementary students in grades K-5, plus 5,702 secondary students in grades 6-12, for a total of 10,844 students district-wide. Last year the district’s enrollment on the first day of school consisted of 5,081 elementary students and 5,558 secondary students, for a total of 10,639, Maben said.