South Londonderry Elementary School, led by Principal Debra Setterlund (PIP ‘24), Special Education Director Alexis Leclair (PIP ‘24), and Assistant Principal Shawn Flynn, recently won the “EDies” award as a New Hampshire School of Excellence. The school was recognized for its commitment to academic achievement, inclusive practices, and whole-child approach. I recently visited Deb and Alexis, and can confirm that it is all true. In addition, I witnessed the joy and trust (amongst staff and students alike) that make it all possible.

“…collective purpose and collaboration are at the heart of everything we do.”

How did they get here? One thing Deb and Alexis credit is consistent and distributed leadership, something emphasized in their UVEI preparation. In addition to Deb, Alexis, and the Assistant Principal, leadership comes from the team of math and literacy specialists, and all of the teachers. Alexis notes that “There’s something incredibly powerful about being part of a school where collective purpose and collaboration are at the heart of everything we do.”

This engagement, in turn, leads to coherence. Take for instance the adoption of a new literacy curriculum that has contributed to improved results. New curricula can easily become top-down mandates for staff, but this does not appear to be the case at South Londonderry. Piloting and program selection included teachers in the decision-making, contributing to a shared focusing direction. The implementation, likewise, has focused on shared capacity building and collaboration. Teachers and specialists have engaged in the highly regarded Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRs) professional learning sequence. A strength of LETRs is that it grounds teachers in structured reading while focusing on building teacher expertise rather than narrow program implementation. Since adoption, teachers have gathered and used data, joining together to look at how they and their students can learn and improve.

“When kids and staff are engrossed in a positive school climate, it allows them to perform to their fullest potential!”

It is rare but not unheard of for a school to adopt a new literacy curriculum with some coherence, or even for that curriculum to lead to a boost in reading scores. It is much rarer for a school to do so while maintaining their focus on kids as whole human beings deserving of care, respect, and joy. This student centered school climate was the highlight of my visit, and as Deb points out, “when kids and staff are engrossed in a positive school climate, it allows them to perform to their fullest potential!”!

While specific programs support a positive climate at South Londonderry, such as the Choose Love social emotional learning curriculum or a host of offerings (I was particularly impressed with the after school Drama Club and the Mentoring Program that pairs older students with younger students, both ways of creating a sense of belonging and connection for students), these kinds of programs can only support strong relationships, they cannot cause them. What impressed me the most was the clearly observable positive interactions, hundreds of them, that I observed between teachers and students, leaders and students, and students with one another (students weren’t shy about engaging enthusiastically with me either). Relationships like this are not accidental. In this case, Deb notes that “We are rarely in our offices. Students interact with us in classrooms, hallways, the cafe, playground, and bus arrival/dismissal. We are actively involved in their day and show them we care by making positive connections.”

“[The UVEI experience] not only shaped our professional paths but also helped to orient our vision and mission…”

I was inspired by the shared work at South Londonderry, and by the degree to which Deb (who has been at the school for 17 years) and Alexis (who is finishing her first year at the school) have been able to apply and extend what they learned at UVEI. Alexis also connects the two, and reflects that “I feel genuinely fortunate to have met and built a connection with Deb during our time at UVEI. That experience not only shaped our professional paths but also helped to orient our vision and mission toward  distributed leadership and coherence in order to guide us toward school improvement.”

Principal candidates often reflect that leadership can feel like a tangled web, and it is true that many aspects of a school need to work together to sustain continuous improvement. Deb, Alexis, and their colleagues have managed to martial those seemingly disparate elements towards a school that is warm, full of learning, and always improving.

For more on South Londonderry’s School of Excellence Award, see the district’s press release.

Page Tompkins is the president of UVEI and he is an instructor and faculty coach for the Principal Intern Program. You can reach him at ptompkins@uvei.edu.