It all started when…
Kris began her career in education over twenty years ago when she served as a Biology teacher in the School District of Philadelphia’s, Martin Luther King High School. Seven years later, under a major re-organization, she was asked to take on the leadership role of 9th Grade House Principal. Under her leadership, the school experienced dramatic increases in student promotion to grade 10, decreases in student dropouts as well as student incident rates.
Kris’ ability to build a strong team and followership was recognized by district leadership and community organizations. As such, the School District of Philadelphia, partnering with an external management organization, asked Kris to step-in and become MLKing’s youngest female principal to run an urban high school in Philadelphia.
In the three years under Kris’ leadership, the school was taken off the State’s persistently dangerous list for two consecutive years. Additionally, student achievement was the highest in the history of the school. Kris was able to rebuild the school after replacing over 60 staff members, reorganize the whole school structure around student support and build a team committed to achieving dreams under her developed MLK creed, “King Team, One Dream.”
From there, Kris accepted a mid-year challenge at another urban high school serving students from Wilmington, Delaware at Christiana High School, where the school was in desperate need of a strong Instructional Leader. CHS was the lowest performing secondary school in the Christina School District (and state) and had the highest percentage of low-income students and diversity of the three high schools in the system. Two out of three years, and for the first time in the school’s history, her school achieved Adequate Yearly Progress, discipline incidents were drastically reduced and student attendance increased. As the district was scrutinized by the Office of Civil Rights for disparities in equitable consequences and sensitivity to culturally responsive discipline, Christiana High School, under Kris’ leadership, received the lowest index score of all middle and high schools in the district and was recognized for the culturally responsive discipline and options for students. They developed, recommended, transitioned, monitored and celebrated students in Fast-Track Credit Recovery Day and Evening Programs, In-School/ Full Service Non Suspension Room, and a Therapeutic Accommodation Room. These opportunities were created with the least amount of monetary resources per student. She also redesigned the Special Education, Professional Learning Community and ELL models as well as created a yearlong professional development plan to increase leadership capacity within her school for the purposes of sustainability.
At both schools, Kris has been able to develop an effective and unique master schedule, driven by student needs to incorporate an effective RTi program, Teacher Common Planning Time, and the specific Professional Learning Community structure at the school. Data is commonplace and used to inform instruction and decisions on school improvement and needed with designing instruction to meet the unique learning needs of all of her students efforts. Through the development of efficient protocols at each school to monitor and provide constant feedback on current school and professional development initiatives, each realized desired outcomes.
During Kris’ most recent tenure at Sarah Pyle Academy in Wilmington, DE she has taken on the unique opportunity to engage the City of Wilmington, as well as her school district to ensure that her program is maximizing and leveraging resources, technology and partnerships to provide non-traditional opportunities to meet all students needs and prepare her students for life after high school. Within a year at the ‘SPA’, Kris has transformed the program to include opportunities for students to self-refer into the program, connect to their classrooms 12 hours a day via ADOBE Connect, developed and implemented a mandatory student lead portfolio process to track and monitor student progress and growth, implemented a competitive College Ready Mathematics and Reading Comprehension skills requirement for all students, worked with staff to develop/create/build an on-campus Peace Garden, a Community Little Library and garnered partnerships and relationships within businesses in Wilmington, Delaware to give depth and meaningful entrepreneurial education and experiences to all of our students. Currently, Sarah Pyle High School is the only non-traditional, dropout prevention program in the state of Delaware and has been recognized by Center for Digital Education as a 2016 Curriculum and Technology Award Honoree, the National Dropout Prevention Network with the Crystal Award for Drop-Out Prevention.
Under Kris’ leadership she continues to re-brand Sarah Pyle as a non-traditional, blended and flexible learning option that services all students 16-21 who are serious about earning their diploma and have a strong entrepreneurial desire to be successful members of their community. Aspiring to make SPA the "Breakthrough" School of Delaware, Kris has lead her program by developing a completely student centered, comprehensive Google based, Personalized Learning Portal that engages families and with alignment in culture, monitoring and progress. Currently, staff and students actively pursue their GAFE Level 1&2 certifications and continue to find ways to use the GAFE to engage all stakeholders.
Kris is a graduate of St. Francis University where she was a Pre-Med major and earned her degree in Secondary Education. In 2006, Kris was recognized by St. Francis University as a “Distinguished Young Alumna of the Year” for her work in Urban Education Reform. Kris earned her Master’s Degree in Educational Administration from Cheyney University.
