Daleville City Schools Superintendent Dr. Lisa Stamps has a vision for Daleville City Schools.
“When I arrived in Daleville this summer, I began talking with faculty and staff to analyze needs. I began developing a vision for the system. I believe strongly in high standards and exemplary academics. So, my focus was to provide the best education possible for the DCS students,” Stamps said.
Stamps believes that recognizing the accomplishments of staff and creating mentor relationships is imperative to success.
“At institute, I shared my theme with the staff, ‘We are the Warhawks, and we will rise.’ We recognized faculty for exemplary attendance, AP qualifying scores and student achievement.
Building relationships is vital to accomplishing goals. I am a people person and understand the positive impact that administrators, teachers, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers have on the lives of students,” Stamps said. “I began getting to know the faculty, staff, students, and parents of Daleville City Schools. I communicated closely with the board to make them aware of how we could increase the schools’ rich learning environment. We are developing more mentoring and advising opportunities for students to have someone who knows them well and can support them closely.”
Stamps set a goal to become more involved in the community and has since played a role in creating an after school program.
“Being active in the community has been a personal goal for me. We surveyed parents and discovered a great need to have after school programs. Joel Adams, other parent/community members and I have recently formed a Boys and Girls Club of Daleville under the leadership of Eufaula’s club,” Stamps said. “Working with the mayor and city council, we have secured a site to house the club. We are projecting to start this June with an exemplary summer program.”
Stamps is working to increase opportunities for DCS students.
“As a new Lion’s Club member, I am excited to help our high school students have the opportunity to attend the Youth Leadership Conference,” Stamps said. “I have worked with the newly formed DHS Alumni organization to increase involvement, pride, and traditions in the school as well as a scholarship for seniors.”
According to Stamps, the school system is actively recruiting faculty and staff to fill vacancies and assist with larger classes.
“Alabama is in a teacher shortage, and it affects our system as well. We are trying to recruit the best, brightest, and hardest working people to work in our schools. As school began, we filled several vacant teaching positions. Hiring additional staff to work with students helps with instruction,” Stamps said. “We hired an assistant principal at Windham since their numbers rose so drastically. We added a couple more para-professionals to assist with large class sizes. Furthermore, we put a behavior interventionist at the elementary school to assist with special needs.”
In addition to educational staff, Stamps said other employees have been hired to provide support where needed.
“Providing support was a focus for me. We hired a CSFO and two coordinators at the central office. We have worked to establish more efficient and money-saving procedures across the board. We put in accountability and cross training measures for staff,” Stamps said. “I am constantly saying that our role is to serve and support our folks so they can educate our students. We know with additional support, morale improves and our schools’ culture would be a more enjoyable learning environment for all.”
Another goal Stamps set for the year was shared leadership.
“Shared leadership was also a goal, to unify the system. I wanted to grow our school leaders and enable them to have a voice. Our leadership team met each month to monitor school needs and began examining areas in which we could improve. Through teamwork, we put our heads together and came up with solutions to correct some of our problems and made wise choices with the students as the bottom line of every decision,” Stamps said. “We implemented plans and worked hard to get better.”
Improvements to the safety and security of the school included security cameras and fencing.
“We have improved safety and security in our schools and on our buses through Advancement and Technology funds to purchase cameras at WES and construct fences at DHS,” Stamps said.
Stamps was encouraged by the improvement on the state report card and hopes to continue that momentum.
“It was wonderful news when the Alabama State Report Card came out that we had improved our scores. WES faculty and staff had a big celebration. They have put many advances in place this fall such as progress monitoring, data analysis, RTI procedures, and teacher professional development to increase student achievement which will, in turn, increase our report card scores,” Stamps said. “WES raised their score from an ‘F’ to a ‘C’ on the report card. The 19-point increase was a significant upgrade from the previous year. Daleville High School also had an increase from 72 to 77. The system as a whole came up from a ‘D’ in year 2017-18 to a ‘C’ in 2018-19 from 68 to 79, an 11-point increase.”
Among all the accomplishments, the student and faculty had several special days in the Fall.
“Our schools had several special days last fall. They held Veteran’s Day programs to honor our military and teach students about respect and sacrifice,” Stamps said. “WES had an incredible book fair and parent night. They had corn roasting and club days. Additionally, they had ‘pink out’ days to support Mrs. Laura Bateman in her fight with breast cancer.”
While the year held many accomplishments and special days, the school system suffered a heartbreaking loss.
“We lost a cherished teacher and will continue to heal from her passing. Mrs. Laura Bateman’s absence has been and will continually be felt in our school system. Our prayers remain for the family during this most difficult time,” Stamps said.
According to Stamps, a continued focus of DCS will be development and leadership.
“Professional development and mentoring teachers are important so we conducted specific new hire training for new employees in August and are having quarterly meetings to check up on new teachers,” Stamps said. “We are all learning and growing, as we attend training on new programs from the state department such as eProve for our school improvement plan and the new data system, PowerSchool that will be coming this summer. Also, we are learning about the new math course of study standards.”
College and career ready students are a goal of DCS.
“We are working with Enterprise State Community College to design ways we can provide more dual enrollment opportunities for our high school students. We are also working to design additional career tech classes to help them be college and career ready,” Stamps said.
Due to a large increase in enrollment, Stamps said planning and renovating is needed to accommodate the numbers.
“Our enrollment has increased by over a hundred students this year from last and we are looking at how we will accommodate students for next year. We are planning to renovate and improve our facilities,” Stamps said.
According to Stamps, the students are active in extracurricular activities, the system is growing, goals are being met and records are being broken.
“In addition to instruction, our students have been busy with ballgames, band, clubs, and many other extra-curricular activities. Our system has moved up from 2A to 3A due to our enrollment increase at the high school. I am very proud that our students have so many opportunities a small-town school provides,” Stamps. “They have a place to belong, to be involved, and to make wonderful memories. Some students have achieved personal goals and some have broken state records. We are constantly working on ways to make their educational days exciting and their futures bright. We have the best teachers around who work hard and love students. I feel blessed and honored to be a part of this great system and look forward to greater things in the future.
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