Hoquiamites may recognize Traci Sandstrom as the friendly-faced principal of Central Elementary School, especially after Educational Service District 113 recently designated her as the Distinguished Elementary Principal for the Harbor Region for the year 2013.
What may be less well known is that she has helped lead the implementation of numerous changes to help the entire district align with state and federal Common Core standards and to improve reading and writing curriculum adoption, among other duties, as the district’s director of teaching and learning.
“When I interviewed her I was impressed with her vision and her leadership,” said Hoquiam School District Superintendent Mike Parker, of when he first interviewed Sandstrom for a principal position at Emerson Elementary in 2006. “And I think if you look at what she’s done all around, it’s proved both of those points to be accurate.”
Sandstrom, a born-and-raised Hoquiamite who graduated from Hoquiam High School in 1988, grew up surrounded by educators. Although her father was a principal and her mother a para-educator, Sandstrom said she had no instinctual urge to join the educational landscape that had nurtured her throughout her youth.
“I had been around schools all of my life, so I didn’t know that was what I wanted to do,” she said, adding she still was unsure once she got to college. “I thought maybe business, but I took my first business class and decided ‘this isn’t for me.’ ”
Drawn next toward what she knew, Sandstrom tried out education, and loved it — majoring in it at Eastern Washington University.
She began her first job back home on Grays Harbor, as a multi-age teacher for a brand new school in Ocean City.
For three years she taught a class of about 22 children in grades 1,2 and 3 — at a brand new school in a decrepit building, Sandstrom said it was quite the learning experience, but also fun.
“They didn’t have any curriculum. Nothing. Everything was built from the ground up, but I loved it,” she said. “As a first-year teacher you’re able to do whatever you want. I got to order all my own desks, paras … If we wanted to go clam digging with the kids we took them clam digging.”
But not everything was great working in the decaying building that has since been closed.
“One day I walked in and the ceiling had collapsed in the gym,” she said. “It just wasn’t up to standard.”
For the next 14 years, Sandstrom taught fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary where she received the breadth of her experience.
“It’s great because the kids still like you, but they can still tie their own shoes and wipe their own noses.”
When Parker took his position in the district in 2006, he appointed Sandstrom to her first principal position at Emerson Elementary — he said he made his decision based on her status as an accomplished teacher who came “highly recommended,” but also that she had obvious vision, as evidenced by the work she is doing today.
Parker soon moved her to Central Elementary, leading fourth- and fifth-graders, because of that belief in her.
“It was an increase in responsibility. The fourth- and fifth-graders do the state tests, and I thought she could help them with her leadership,” he said.
He soon added director of teaching and learning to her responsibilities.
“We really needed someone to focus on teaching and learning and I wasn’t gonna put that on the plate of myself or (Assistant Superintendent) Shannon Webster,” said Parker, adding Sandstrom was the most obvious choice. “We didn’t have (that position) and were lagging a little bit behind and Traci was willing to take that on.”
Now Sandstrom — who is also a mother of children ages 12, 17 and 19 and the wife of HHS business education teacher Jim Sandstrom — is released from her principal duties twice a week to work on her other tasks. HHS leadership teacher Bonnie Jump stands in for her on those days.
“It can be a lot of work at times, two full-time jobs,” Sandstrom said. “I love it, but the lines get blurred a lot.”
She said one of the most positive changes she has been able to help make are the district’s “Team Wednesdays,” during which children are let out of school 90 minutes early each Wednesday so that teachers can meet and discuss how they might improve. The meetings, which are in their second year, are for conversations that might not otherwise be had, said Sandstrom. “It’s the concept of shared leadership,” she said. “Teachers are the ones doing the work, so they need to be in on what’s happening. It’s one of our biggest accomplishments.”
Another area she and her leadership team of 28 people, including individuals from every one of the buildings in the district, have been working on is the concept of “high-poverty, high-performing” schools.
Following a book by authors William Parrett and Kathleen Budge, who studied many schools in-depth that are both high-poverty and high-performing and derived a set of strategies, the district is working to help close the privilege gap in a similar way for Hoquiam School District.
“We have kids who come from many different backgrounds. Their parents love them just as much as anyone else, but they need someone to work with them and offer different strategies,”she said.
One of those strategies is “home visits,” which have stemmed from the district’s recent realization that they have a severe problem with attendance, mainly due to excused absences. In Central Elementary, Sandstrom said this was recently exemplified in that a new game played gives a letter to each class each time the entire class is on time. To get the letter no one can be tardy or leave early — a frequent problem in the district, said Sandstrom. Often parents want to pick their child up from school on their way home from work or for a variety of other reasons.
“The first one was ‘FABULOUS’ and it took this long to get one, if you can believe it,” she said Wednesday morning. “It showed we have a lot of kids not here.”
Home visits, employed successfully thus far in each grade level, send principals like Sandstrom — sometimes alongside teachers — to the homes of children they have not been able to get through to otherwise.
“It isn’t a punitive thing,” said Sandstrom. “It’s saying, ‘You have to have your kid here.’ We have parents who maybe can’t afford gas, so we try to find a way to help. If they don’t have an alarm clock, well let’s get you an alarm clock.”
She said that part of the “high-poverty, high-performing” strategy is executing steps like this, before more drastic measures like contacting Child Protective Services (where the complaint would likely be buried in a host of others anyway) or using the “Becca Bill” (specified for unexcused absences) and bring them to court.
“They know we care. A lot is connected to attendance and we have a pretty big attendance issue. That results in gaps in learning,” said Sandstrom. “A lot of parents have had bad experiences at school from growing up. So we try to have a relationship built on trust. They know that we’re all in this together.”
Bridging the gap
Another goal of Sandstrom’s is helping to bridge learning gaps by adding instruction time outside of school. She recently received grant money to aid in having Sunday classes.
“If they have transport issues we will pick them up. We will feed them dinner and equip them with an iPad mini, with reading and math apps,” she said, adding the devices also aim at closing the “digital divide” between impoverished and privileged children. “If they want to do a presentation or a video with it, great. They may never know if they enjoy it if they never have access. They may not know what their passion is.”
Sandstrom presented these changes and more alongside principals from each school in the district at the school board’s last work session, receiving praise for the cohesion they have been able to achieve largely due to the direction and collaboration led by Sandstrom.
“There is continuity here that I’ve never seen in all my years here,” said Todd Gwinn during his final week as a school board member last week. “A few years ago (Hoquiam Middle School Principal) Dale (Stopperan) was talking about continuity from middle school up through high school … What a neat thing to see this developing and where you guys are going.”
Sandstrom said despite a lack of funding for many of the mandates handed down by the Legislature, including many assessments, she thinks most of them — like the Common Core alignment — are for the best.
“I think it’s great … It’s a high standard, but I think we can do it. It’s a cumulative curriculum where we’re all aligned … No more of us looking to California’s curriculum,” she said, referring to what was often the course of action the district took prior to the Common Core implementation.
Sandstrom sees greatness in the future for her home town despite the obstacles ahead. “My hopes for the district are even though we are a high-poverty district we can still go the distance,” she said, adding she wants to see more children in the district graduate from college. “All the things are in place for us to succeed. We’re on the edge of greatness.”