This year has come and gone very quickly, but according to Mr. Miller (principal of Stafford Elementary) a lot has been accomplished.

The main goal Mr. Miller had set this year for Stafford Elementary was to achieve stability in the school. “The goal is for the students and the teachers to get acclimated to the new instructional leadership. it is important. Instruction is the key to what we are doing on campus,” Mr. Miller explained.

Attendance was another goal that was set. Mr. Miller said, “We pretty much have the attendance in good form but it is not one hundred percent. That would be hard to do but our goal for the coming year is to get it to ninety-eight percent. We are also going to focus on tardiness. Students seem to think if they are just three minutes late it is alright. Three minutes late is not on time. We will be focusing on being on time.”

Now that Mr. Miller has stability in the school the next thing he wants to do is practice proven learning techniques. He explained, “We are emphasizing using the best practices in the classroom. We are going to be data driven. We need to research learning practices that have been proven to work. Then we will implement those systems. For the most part the students are familiar with me now so it is not like I am coming in new and they are having to get acclimated to me, they know me now. So we are going to hit the ground running next year.”

He went on to say, “I am really emphasizing academics and we are going to start really early on our intervention on the kids that are struggling. Even though we have raw data from the STARR test we don’t have a true score or true standard scores. We will look at this raw data and start helping the kids that are struggling. We had to wait several weeks before but we are not going to wait several weeks this year. We are starting right away with our interventions on students that may be struggling academically. We have to get these students to grade level appropriate and then continue on from there. Our job is to get them ready for Junior High and High School. Not only to get them ready but to get them to the point where they can succeed.”

When asked what he thought about his job and Italy Mr. Miller said, “I love my job. I love interacting with the students, teachers and staff. I enjoy being a part of the learning system. As for Italy, I enjoy being in Italy. I like to stop by the ball fields some days on my way home and watch the students practice and occasionally go to a ball game. I want the community to know I want to be here.”

“We challenged the students this year and they were up for the challenge. Grades, attendance and good behavior flourished this year. I am proud of the kids. This was a good year,” proudly stated Mr. Miller.