Rural Building Administrator
Jan Seitz, Mound City R-II
Outstanding Rural Building Administrator
Jan Seitz
Mound City R-II School District
“I want to do what is best for kids!” That is Jan Seitz’s motto in her role as the Mound City R-II Elementary and Middle School Principal. She is visionary in doing what is best for kids and creating an enriching learning environment.
In her eighteen years in the district (3 as a teacher, 15 as principal), Mrs. Seitz feats have been sincerely driven by a clear and finitely focused vision of the district. The facilitation of change has occurred through her dynamic leadership and careful thought processes in creating a multi-dimensional annual building level improvement plan. Her ability to guide the group to the common goal is done through annual and systematic reviews of instructional effectiveness as it relates to student driven data. Out of this vision several programs have all been made successful by a systematic professional development for teachers based on research best practices.
During her time in the district, she has been involved in the writing , receiving, and implementation of over $1,456,000 in grants. All the grant monies have been used to train teachers, purchase materials to support revised curricular areas and development of communication strategies with parents and community members. Some of these grants have included: Accelerated Schools, Practical Parenting, Reading First, Goals 2000, and Missouri Preschool Project.
In doing what is best for kids, Mrs. Seitz has always practiced certain leadership and management skills. They have included:
- Keeping protected instruction time in mind with careful accessed release time, in-service days and paid non-contract time for teachers and administrators to write curriculum.
- Building on the strengths of staff and community members to implement new ideas in and around the school.
- Helping students in achievement by matching individual needs to appropriate programs and services.
- Open communication with the parents and community through such avenues as newsletters, emails, web site productions, wiki-pages, newsletters to businesses, speaking at local clubs and organizations.
Jan Seitz’s primary goal has been to ensure that the district does not limit the quality of education based on economic restrictions, but as a visionary has always looked ahead at what is coming in the educational future seeing to it that students are prepared, makes her deserving of Missouri’s Outstanding Rural Building Administrator for 2012.