While there have been many unforeseen challenges in my three years as Superintendent in the Coupeville School District, I continue to love Coupeville and our school community.  Through the difficult times we have all encountered because of COVID-19 we continue to have amazing, resilient students, a dedicated and caring staff, and extremely supportive families and community members.  With this as our foundation, I am optimistic about our future and believe that all of these difficult and often divisive times will be a learning opportunity that we can learn and grow from.  

Here are a few of my priorities as we head into the new school year:

Health of our school community: 

As many of you know, when I came to the school district over three years ago, I think it was clear that I am passionate about the health of our school community; when I use the term “health” I mean both physical and mental health. My passion for this focus comes from witnessing the deterioration of health in our students throughout my career in education.  These health issues become a barrier to learning for so many students and negatively impacts their future success.  As part of our long-term goal to increase health within the Coupeville Schools community, we launched our very popular Connected Food Program (which you can follow on Facebook & Instagram) where students have access to real and often local food made from scratch. In collaboration with Coupeville Farm To School Program (which you can follow on Facebook & Instagram) we have added our new Coupeville School Farm (you can follow on Instagram) that will not only be an outdoor learning space, but also will source food for the Connected Food Program. 

I will also continue to promote our school community being physically active while practicing positive mental health practices.  The current COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened my commitment to the importance of health in our schools as this novel (new) virus has much more dramatically impacted those with comorbidities like obesity that often could be changed through lifestyle.  Given this, as we prepare for the school year I want our community to know that I am committed to the following:

• Restarting our Healthy Youth Task Force that has been shutdown since March 2020
• Promote basic positive lifestyle choices, like:
                Eat - Eating whole foods
                Move - Regular physical activity & exercise (outside when possible)
                Rest - Limiting screen time and increasing positive mental health practices
• Implementing all health department guidelines in regards to COVID-19
•Promoting outdoor learning opportunities

Equity:

During the 2020-2021 school year we began very critical and long overdue equity work in Coupeville Schools by creating a District Equity Team.  During the year the team accomplished many things including creating a Team Purpose Statement and a District Commitment Statement.  These statements can be found in our Equity Purpose and Commitment Statement. As we move into the new school year I have the following priorities to ensure the continued success of this work:

• Hosting and participating in training for staff
• Providing professional development for our leadership team to equip them to lead our schools in this work
• Adopting an equity policy and procedure 
• Collaborating with staff, parents, and students to ensure that all barriers to learning are removed for our students
  

Long-Term Vision & Mission:

During the last year and a half our focus has clearly been on the pandemic.  As we transition forward we have many items that need to be addressed to ensure a positive long-term future for our district.  Here is a short summary of areas of additional focus for this year:

• Updating the District Strategic Plan
• Pass our regular Enrichment & Capital Projects Levy during February of this year
• Capital Projects Levy during February to continue maintaining our buildings
• Prepare for Coupeville Elementary School building changes with a likely Bond Measure for a new school building or renovation in February of 2024
• Reinstating our District Curriculum Committee 

I am excited about the amazing personal connections we have with each other here in Coupeville and I am excited to continue working with our school community to implement these priorities in order to benefit our students.

Go Wolves!
Steve King