About NSPRA
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The Superintendents to Watch award recognizes up to 25 school district leaders each year who have fewer than five years of experience as a superintendent and who demonstrate dynamic, fast-paced leadership with strong communication at its core.
What does leadership mean to you?
Leadership is an intricate tapestry that intertwines vision, empathy, guidance and inspiration. It shapes the dynamics of teams, organizations and communities. At its core, leadership embodies a vision, a compelling direction that rallies individuals toward a shared goal by providing a guiding light, igniting passion and motivation among team members. Relationship-building, clear communication, collaboration and teamwork are fundamental to effective leadership. A leader's role is to encourage cooperation, foster a culture of teamwork and leverage diverse strengths to lead to more creative solutions and higher productivity. Adaptability and resilience are also defining traits of successful leaders, especially today. Leadership is not a position to hold but a responsibility to shoulder—a blend of skills, virtues and behaviors aimed at guiding others toward a shared vision while fostering growth, trust and resilience within a collective journey towards success.
How have you integrated communication into your district’s strategic plan?
Communication is a key aspect of our strategic plan. “Engaged and invested community” is one of the current OCPS Strategic Plan objectives. I am also leading a Strategic Plan update that will keep communication and transparency at the forefront. My communication goals include engaging with diverse stakeholders to gain insight on strengths and opportunities, establishing structures to provide transparent and regular communications, and building on my collaborative relationship with the school board. Last year, OCPS provided 770 opportunities for stakeholders to provide feedback across all divisions of our organization. I also connect with the OCPS community and larger central Florida area in person and via social media. One of the most visible aspects of this effort is hosting “Mondays with Maria,” a weekly OCPS talk-show program featuring informative discussions between myself and a variety of guests. The segments launch on OCPS’ website, social media pages and via e-mail.
What communication initiative are you most proud of that have you implemented in your district?
Since becoming superintendent in 2022, I have prioritized effective communication and increasing transparency by using new tools to gather input. One of these tools is the ThoughtExchange online crowdsourcing platform. I started out by inviting OCPS staff, students, parents and the community to provide feedback through ThoughtExchange. That allowed me to see what issues raised the most concerns across groups and communities. I accompanied these conversations with more than 50 in-person town hall meetings around the county, also using ThoughtExchange to rate ideas. This feedback allowed me to set priorities for my first year and beyond. These included reorganizing district leadership and addressing student discipline. Our efforts so far have reduced discipline issues and also increased student engagement. Going forward, we intend to use ThoughtExchange as a tool to gather parent and staff feedback about our future facilities and capital needs.
B.A. - Mississippi State University; MPA - University of Georgia
I believe school PR/communications is what I was born to do! One of the biggest decisions a parent can make is where to send their child to school, and it’s an honor to share with our parents the engaging work that their children are doing under the guidance of world-class teachers and leaders. On any given day, in any given school, there are many stories to be told and I take that charge seriously. As school communicators played a key role in COVID-19 communications, storytelling was more important than ever – not only did I share information with parents about our protocols, but I also made over 80 visits to schools last year and told a variety of stories about how students were thriving with both in-person and distance learning options. I also worked with principals to determine best mitigation practices and helped make those pervasive, because positive action must be the foundation of what we are ultimately communicating. School public relations is incredibly complex and I love that each day brings a new challenge.
My greatest school PR success was completing 11 nationally-innovative school communication audits using a process of research, planning, implementation, and evaluation. I am now in phase two of this project and am attending school council meetings to garner feedback from parents about school-level communication and how I can better support the work of their schools. One of the most significant findings is that as students take more ownership of their learning, they also take more ownership in parent communication. Therefore, next steps are to better prepare parents for this transition and to also determine best practices from exemplar teachers and coaches at the secondary level so we can strike the right balance with parents feeling informed and fostering student independence.
My greatest school PR challenge is overcoming rigidity. Like many PR professionals, I am detail-oriented and a self-described perfectionist. It’s a blessing and a curse to see when something is one pixel off, but the greatest challenge I have faced in my 13 years in this field is to learn to be more flexible. I might have an aversion to Comic Sans or Curlz, but it’s not the end of the world if those are a font favorite elsewhere. What’s more important is the bigger picture – staff and parents feeling well-informed and students growing and learning in positive school cultures. Instead of telling someone their website isn’t formatted properly, I now make a 2-3 minute screencast if I think there’s a quick tutorial I can offer to provide ongoing professional learning. By being much more flexible, I have deepened relationships and become better at supporting the most important job that occurs in our school system: teaching.
My favorite part of my job is the relationships. I often say that there is no substitute for showing up, and that’s why I make so many school visits each year. From getting to hold a gorgeous monarch butterfly to watching a vibrant student musical to seeing 3-D printing in action from engineering students, I have witnessed countless unique opportunities, and these experiences are just a small piece of what our students get to take part in each and every day. If I didn’t take the time to form relationships, I wouldn’t know that what students value is knowing that the photos I take may show up in their yearbooks. I wouldn’t know the myriad of annual activities that teachers do across our schools because I wouldn’t have witnessed them firsthand. I wouldn’t know about the families of our principals or what they believe makes their school unique. All of that is invaluable because at the end of the day and at the end of this career, relationships are what will remain – both professionally and personally.
The communication tool I use the most is Canva! I would be a brand ambassador if they asked! I am not very mathematically-minded and it can be challenging for someone with an eye for good design – but not an eye for rulers and gridlines – to be a graphic designer. However, Canva has made it possible and I am able to create aesthetically-pleasing graphics with short turn-around times. I have trained communication ambassadors at our schools how to use it as well. Right after Canva, the tool I most use is iMovie. I am completely self-taught in videography and using iMovie and Canva together has made me someone who can add “videographer” to their list of expertise.