Experienced Principal Janet Gates-Cortez has joined the leadership team at Stewart Middle School as co-principal with Jon Ketler.
The two experienced educators will team up to improve the instructional practice, the school climate and school improvement efforts instituted in the first year of the three-year, federal School Improvement Grant turnaround process. The state identified Stewart, along with three other Tacoma middle schools, as among the lowest-performing schools in the state.
As a result, Stewart qualified for federal grants to remake the entire instructional program. Ketler instituted a creative program focused around a combination of science, engineering, art, technology and math. The federal SIG process includes an evaluation component that anticipates monitoring and adjusting the school’s program year to year.
Gates-Cortez will continue to serve as principal at Park Avenue Center, which provides the most intensive special education programs for students who have not succeeded in the regular school setting. The cooperative leadership-sharing arrangement at Stewart mimics similar arrangements Ketler has as co-director of School of the Arts and the Science and Math Institute.
“This expansion of the leadership team at Stewart will provide the staff members with an additional, highly experienced leader who has demonstrated a longstanding passion for innovations that improve student learning,” said Deputy Superintendent Carla Santorno. “Janet’s strong special education background and understanding of the process for inclusion of students with varying capabilities and embedding them into the regular education setting will be invaluable. That goal has been a trademark of the original vision Jon had for the reinvigorated program at Stewart.”