Christine Ackerman

I would say to take advantage of every opportunity you are presented with. Along my career path, there were moments where I was asked to extend myself beyond my role, like taking on the athletic directorship, teaching a 6th grade class when I was an administrator, or being in charge of being the Director of Social Services. These were all opportunities that I took advantage of to help grow myself professionally. So I would share that it's important to seek out ways for you to push yourself beyond your comfort zone, because that's where the learning happens. That has served me well all the way up through my progression in my career. I'm in a position right now where I pull on everything - I pull on my athletic director experience, I pull on my experience as a special ed director, I pull on my experience as the high school principal, I pull on my teaching experience to help make good decisions for kids. The more you allow yourself to be in these different spaces doing different things, the stronger you will be in your role, whatever role you choose to be in at a specific time.

I feel like some of our opportunities and challenges are intertwined. Like many different professions, the opportunities associated with AI and supporting our work are tremendous, but there's also some real concerns about the impact of AI on student experiences and understanding of what's happening within the world around them. So while technology has so many different opportunities to enhance instruction and to improve our productivity, that's also coupled with some challenges around student use and student exposure to different content related to AI generation, and there's that educational piece that we're really responsible for, but it also is evolving. Another area is increased costs to be able to support what students need and having the access to support that without burdening families. Costs are rising within our homes and within our community, and they're rising within your school district as well, so being able to balance what you need and what our kids need with also the understanding that costs are rising for everybody is challenging. The resource allocation is just not the same for all kids and is highly dependent on where you live, and trying to address that is really challenging for a variety of reasons. And then, of course, the rising cost of college is unbelievable.

I think at the core of my work, it's making sure that what is best for children drives all of the decisions around me, because I represent what they need and what we need to do in order to support children in all of my conversations. That has to drive every conversation that I'm in. I also think it's important that every child has an opportunity to access the curriculum based on the skill development that they need, and so that we have a differentiated approach across our district, because students learn in many different ways. And then finally, I think that it's important that students are able to show up to school and that they know that their identity is valued, and that they can be who they are, and that is going to be supported by everyone within the school community, and that they belong here.