Q&A with Dr. Stephanie Stewart, MSD of Mt. Vernon superintendent
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In September, Dr. Stephanie Stewart was appointed superintendent of the Metropolitan School District of Mt. Vernon. Her previous roles include principal at Tekoppel Elementary and West Terrace Elementary and director of instruction at Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp.
Stewart spoke with Inside INdiana Business about her goals as MSD of Mt. Vernon’s superintendent and the state of public education.
Tell me about your experience before joining MSD of Mt. Vernon.
I’m starting my 25th year in education. I went to Indiana State [University] for my undergrad, and then at the time I graduated, we were experiencing quite a teacher abundance in Indiana. So jobs were hard to come by. I relocated to Carrollton, Georgia. I taught there for a few years and then relocated back to Indiana.
Jobs were still hard to find, and so I did teach for one more year. Then I was asked to take a principal position at a small parochial school. I did that for three years before joining the EVSC team in 2008, where I first worked at a high poverty [school], but it was not a title school. So I had all the work but not the funding, and I was there for eight years.
My husband at the time was relocated to Memphis, so we moved down there with our family. I served in multiple capacities there. I worked for the Mississippi Department of Education in the school improvement office. I was a director, and I went around the northern part of Mississippi helping failing schools.
I transitioned to DeSoto County schools, and I was working curriculum there for a couple years before relocating back to Evansville, where I rejoined the EVSC team. I served as a director of instruction, teacher evaluations and [Multi-Tiered System of Supports] coordinator.
During COVID, I went back to a building to fill a role of one of our principals that retired, and I just loved being back in the building. So I spent a few years at West Terrace, and then I was asked to move on to Tekoppel, which is a high needs school and a title building. I was there for a year and a half before before coming to Mt. Vernon.
I also do some adjunct teaching at the University of Southern Indiana.
How will your background help in your new role as superintendent?
The role of the principal requires you to be hands on. You have to jump in in the cafeteria. You have to jump in with custodial and maintenance needs. You’re also the instructional leader. You’re a teacher. So the role of a principal does prepare you for being a superintendent. You don’t have as many opportunities to learn about the financial side or legal aspect of the job, but those are some areas that you can learn.
As a building principal, the EVSC was great for me to learn from and many different professional opportunities there. And as a teacher, I feel how the teachers feel. As a principal, I’m able to see teaching from their lens. That is the work we all do, what our teachers do. They are such an important role to the whole field of education. If I had a magic wand, they’d be the most paid individuals in our society. That’s where the magic happens.
What challenges do you expect to face in this role?
Relationships are important to all lines of work, and I have to take the time to get to know people so that I can build trust with my colleagues and different staff members in Mt. Vernon. I need to know and understand the community values and so that I can work in unison with different members of the community to reach the goals they’d like to see in Mt. Vernon.
I moved when I was a kid. I went to eight to 10 different schools before 10th grade because of the job that my dad had. So being the new kid is fine for me. I enjoy getting to know people. I’ve been able to work in the EVSC community and the Evansville community for so many years, and I’m excited to branch out and get to know another community in Indiana, help kids in this community and help teachers reach their goals, their vision and the families.
I’ve been a school administrator for 20 years, so being a superintendent is different than being a building level administrator. So it’s a learning curve for me. I have to be an active learner every single day. My goal to help myself with those challenges is to get out in buildings and work alongside the people in the buildings. I hope that helps me to get to know people, be at community events, be visible and get to know the kids.
What are your short-term goals as superintendent?
The hard part of this job that I’ve discovered early on is I have to make decisions in the moment. And when you’re established in a community or you’re established in a school district and you make hard decisions, the people who know you and understand you and have invested in relationships with you, they understand the why, and it doesn’t hurt the relationships.
I don’t have that established yet, and that’s the role of the superintendent to be that final decision maker. My deepest desire is to build relationships with all community members that are working in our school district and that impact our school district. I need to invest the time to get to know as many people as I can.
What are your long-term goals?
We are excited to look forward to the opportunities that we have with the industry in Mt. Vernon. We have a welding program in our schools, and we’ve been lucky enough to partner with a business in Mt. Vernon, BWXT, so we can offer our students training opportunities. And we look forward to partnering with other industries.
Unfortunately, school is still very traditional from when I was younger and when my parents were younger. We still have some of the same practices and procedures that we have had for generations. And our society has changed so much. We’re challenged and charged with creating learning environments for students that foster their goals and visions for their lives.
The technology in Mt. Vernon is awesome. To be such a small district and have already acquired and established the technology here is interesting to me. I’m excited about increasing college level courses at the high school and also looking towards establishing early learning programs. We have a start but really building on that so that we are giving kids the opportunity to have some preschool experience before jumping into kindergarten.
I want the Tri-State area to know what we have to offer at Mount Vernon. I want to show us off and reach young families that are contemplating where they’re going to send their children to school one day. We want to be welcoming to different types of families and people who can contribute to the community.
What’s the state of public education in Indiana?
We’re in a challenging situation. Testing is hard for educators. We know what kids can do. We know what their potential is. But it’s totally different with test administration and assessments.
Some of our challenges have always been there. It’s just that our children change, our new teachers change. They’re different than new teachers were 25 years ago. We don’t all share the same vision, and it’s not negative, it’s just different. You get new teachers rolling in with different ideas, which are great. But some of us who have been around for a while, we have to remember our way is not always the best way, and we can learn from people who are new to the field.
Our kids are different. They have questions. They want to know why. They want respect. Not that we shouldn’t have always thought about that and worked hard to do that, but it’s demanded now in the society we live in. We want to raise kids to go out and be on their own and ask why and not just accept an answer. But sometimes when they’re little, and they get those skills before we’re ready for them, it can be challenging.
We face a challenge with social media. That’s hard because it’s such a gift, and at the same time, it can be so detrimental. We see it physically, emotionally and mentally. I can pick a kid out in a room who spends so much time on video games versus students that play outside. We don’t want them to not participate in video games. That could be a lifetime of an exciting career path if we foster that for kids, but we need to provide them with that balanced education.
We are presented as educators with students who have mental illness and emotional struggles. And we’re not always trained as educators to be able to support all of the different kinds of needs. So we’re trying to catch up and make sure that we’re ready and available for students because they bring a lot to school with them.
As educators, we naturally want to nurture and help, but you only have so many hours in a day to do that. Life is hard for a lot of the kids we serve. We need to remind everyone that’s involved in education why they’re here. At the end of the day, you’re not going to be a millionaire. We do it because we’re changing lives. I truly believe that we have the opportunity to save the world.
In September, there were school threat investigations in South Bend, Lafayette, Columbus, Jeffersonville and Evansville. What is MSD of Mt. Vernon doing to ensure student safety?
My first couple of days on the job, my questions with other district level employees centered around, “What do we do to keep kids safe?” Our buildings are locked down and you have to have access to get in. Are those up to date? Are we using the best software that we can for those measures? What are policies that we have? Who’s allowed on the property? Who’s not allowed on the property?
It’s a fine line when it comes to transparency because we don’t want to worry people when everything’s safe. We don’t want to cause any uneasiness, or we don’t want kids to be scared to go to school. But we also want to maintain a level of transparency so parents are aware if incidents happen in the building.
We need the parents to talk to their kids about this as well. Everybody needs a game plan. Teachers all need to be on the same page. Those are the things we’re talking about right now, making sure our safety plans are up to date, making sure everybody’s on the same page. It doesn’t matter what role you serve in this district. You need to be on the same page talking through response situations and working with local law enforcement.
We do have an [school resource officer] in the district, and he’s visible. He is moving through the district frequently. That is also a benefit. We look forward to increasing the capacity in that regard. Teachers know we don’t prop doors open. We don’t leave students unattended. We don’t sit kids in the hallways. Those basic things that can be life changing, game changing.