The Roanoke Times

File 2006 Montgomery County Superintendent Tiffany Anderson (center) teaches students about the civil rights movement.

The Roanoke Times

File 2005 Tiffany Anderson (center), shown in 2005 as a candidate for the Montgomery County superintendent position, talks with teachers Barbara Straub (right) of Harding Avenue Elementary School and Barbara Livingston of Christiansburg Primary School during a meet-the-candidate forum. Anderson's contract with the county officially ends Tuesday.

| Anna L. Mallory

anna.mallory@roanoke.com, 381-8627

Since March, when outgoing Montgomery County Superintendent Tiffany Anderson announced her departure to head a small charter school in her home state of Missouri, she has juggled three jobs: her role here, caring for ailing family members and laying the groundwork for her new job.

Anderson regularly has traveled to and from Kansas City, Mo., while still working to wrap up evaluations and work here.

Her contract with the county officially ends Tuesday.

While she said she did not have time for a sit-down interview, Anderson did agree to answer questions via e-mail. In her responses, Anderson reflected on her time here, saying she feels "blessed" to have spent time in Montgomery County.

She said she is pleased with the direction the district has taken during her four years and points to academic and social growth, such as districtwide regional accreditation, improvements in test scores and a more diverse administration as her accomplishments.

Q How would you characterize Montgomery County Public Schools at the time you took the job? What attracted you to this school system?

A When I accepted the position in 2005, most of the schools were not accredited. In addition, the achievement gap was growing, and the diverse representation of staff including the administrative staff was minimal. However, student diversity was increasing. Nurses were part time, although health and wellness remained a concern. Many of the schools had no air conditioning, and facility concerns were growing. There were also several concerns about personnel matters.

Q Shortly after taking the position, you made a few personnel changes that garnered some criticisms. What, if anything, would you have done differently in those situations? And why did you think those changes were needed?

A We have maintained a "Students First" philosophy in this school district. Therefore, I have remained committed to addressing any issues that needed to be addressed in order to uphold this philosophy. Making any changes as a new staff person is always difficult because the staff is still getting to know you. However, when it was necessary to address issues early on, I am always prepared to do so in any district.

Q How do you think those switches have changed Montgomery County?

A We have a committed group of administrators who work closely together to ensure that students remain first and that teaching and support staff members are supported. The school culture we have now has led to the schools becoming fully accredited. This culture has also led to schools having an improved ranking on other national and state assessments, the district achieving national accreditation through SACS/CASI [the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement, an accreditation organization] in 2009, and it's the reason we currently have the improvements in other areas within the division.

Q Also, in terms of personnel, you made an effort to get younger administrators and those who are minorities in management roles. Why was that so important to both you and to the school system?

A My focus is on recruiting and retaining great administrators and teachers. We recruit and retain seasoned teachers and administrators as well as staff that are new to teaching and administration. That is another reflection of the diversity in the district.

As an example, our directors of elementary and secondary administration that were hired in the last two years are veteran administrators with over 20 years in education, just as the principals of all of the high schools are veteran educators. Many of our teachers have this type of experience as well. Our goal is to have the best and brightest staff in every area.

In the last four years, we have actively recruited staff. We also seek out excellent teachers in Montgomery County. I remain accessible to teachers and talk regularly with effective educators. We look for ways for them to grow and remain in our district when they are seeking growth opportunities. This has resulted in many of our administrators being former educators in the district before moving into their current positions. They have all done an exceptional job in their positions.

Examples of administrators that this relates to are administrators at Margaret Beeks Elementary School, Shawsville Middle School, Auburn Middle School, Christiansburg Elementary School, Christiansburg Primary School and Eastern Montgomery High School.

Q Academically, Montgomery County was struggling with state test scores. Talk about what steps you and staff took to improve the situation. Gaps do still exist within the special education population, as well as the black students and lower SES [Socioeconomic status]. What else needs to be done?

A Early in my tenure, we began work on creating a data-driven well-paced curriculum that's aligned with the state standards. Putting in place this process and document began to ensure that we paced instruction over the course of the year so the state standards were being met. It also ensured that all schools were following the same curriculum that reduced the gaps in instruction as students transferred between schools.

Some of our schools have a high mobility rate, and the consistent curriculum across the division reduced the gaps in instruction when students transferred between schools.

Many of our schools such as Auburn Elementary School, Auburn Middle School and Auburn High School have significantly reduced or eliminated their gaps in every subgroup with the greatest gains being in special education and free and reduced lunch.

As an example, in 2004, 30 percent of Auburn Elementary's special education students passed the SOL [Standards of Learning] test, and in 2008 and in 2009, over 80 percent passed the SOL test. In 2009, they were awarded the distinguished Title I award.

At Auburn Middle in 2005, they had a pass rate of 40 percent for low socioeconomic students. In the 2008-2009 school year, they had a pass rate of 83 percent. The two administrators at Auburn Elementary and Auburn Middle were hired into their positions during my tenure. Both are examples of the exceptional quality of our administrative staff across the county.

As we see promising practices at individual schools in addition to having district-wide interventions, we are building a culture of leaders who are learning from individual schools to enable them to replicate such success. The central office team works to provide the support and resources for them to collaborate to make that happen.

Other schools have improved, and many schools such as Gilbert Linkous Elementary School and Margaret Beeks Elementary School have experienced a 100 percent pass rate in grade levels across their schools. However, we are still working toward the goals of eliminating achievement gaps in all areas.

Overall, our instruction gains as a district have been significant with the achievement gap, with accreditation and in content areas across the district. However, we believe in continuous improvement. There will always be room to grow, particularly since the state benchmarks that a district has to achieve are increased by approximately 5 percent each year.

Q I know you worked closely with PTAs and the Montgomery County Education Association, meeting with them regularly. Can you talk about how that helped shape the priorities you had and decisions you made?

A In my role in my prior district as assistant superintendent serving 22,000 students, we had a parent president's forum, and I continued this as superintendent in Montgomery County along with establishing monthly meetings with the MCEA.

As I've worked to be as accessible as possible to the school community and I've worked to understand the needs of families and staff while also helping them be informed of challenges within the district, meeting with these groups and the other advisory groups we established since 2005 was essential.

As an example, our support staff advisory group that I established in 2005 gave support staff members a louder voice in sharing the needs they had. My work with that group resulted in me recommending that the time frame in which they qualify for benefits be sooner and that's been put in place. Their recommendation to me about providing sick leave at the beginning of the year, increasing salaries (particularly for those under the poverty line), and changing some practices in some departments enabled me to address those needs.

Meeting with the support staff advisory group also helped me have a greater understanding of some of the issues the support staff face as I view our support staff as part of our team, and I truly enjoyed my time serving lunches or riding buses as part of my "teacher for the day" program.

Likewise, meeting with the parent presidents across the district enabled me to learn about the areas that parents had an interest in addressing. It also helped me identify priority areas that would help us better serve our students such as providing full-time nurses and addressing facility issues. Having this group also enabled parents from across the district to meet each other and to share strategies aimed at parental involvement. This group was a tremendous resource. Ideas like having the vegetarian menu which we now have in place came directly from that group.

My role is to serve families and students, and the parent president group was a vehicle to better help me do that. In my new district, I have three schools (elementary, middle and high), and I will plan to continue this group with those parent presidents.

Regarding the education association, I am a member of the MCEA. It has been wonderful partnering with the association to work jointly toward improvements for staff and students.

Q This was your first job as a superintendent. What have you learned during your tenure here, and how do you think that will help you in the future?

A While this was my first job as superintendent, I have been an administrator for 11 years. Therefore, the importance of curriculum, relationships and recruiting quality staff has been reinforced as essential elements that must be put in place when working toward continuous improvement. As I serve students in the future, these three key elements will continue to be areas of priority.

Q What about the school system now? What are the strong and weak points? What challenges do you see for the division as you leave?

A The school system's improvements include the following:

n Decreasing achievement gaps and eliminating gaps at some schools;

n Increasing diversity in our staffing;

n Implementation of the division's first health and wellness plan for students and staff and improvement in the overall area of health and wellness with full day nurses; and

n Implementation of air conditioning in schools that have operated without air conditioning for many years.

The continued challenge in these economic times will be to identify and access the resources needed to continue to move the district forward.

As I prepare to return to Missouri to see my mom through her final years, I must say that I feel blessed to have been a part of Montgomery County these last four years. I trust that our work as a staff and school community has been of service to children in meaningful ways. You truly never know what the future may hold.

While the death of one family member in December has saddened me greatly and the illness of another has caused me to recognize it's time to return home, I must say that I am departing with a feeling of joy in seeing the accomplishments of our students here. I also feel blessed to have had the privilege to serve students and families in Montgomery County.