Jeanie McGough, the new School Improvement Facilitator, goes about her job in a way that redefines the title of her previously unknown yet important position.
“We used to be a traditional high school,” McGough said. “Eight years ago, we got a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and they said, ‘Make small learning communities.’ That’s where we got our academies.”
The School Improvement Facilitator position originally arose in order to organize and create a functional academy system, obtaining funding, doing community outreach. After the grant ran out, the position was “absorbed by various teachers on campus who do this kind of task already, but are limited in time they can devote to it.
“I do a little bit of that — the professional development — and I do a little bit of the helping people facilitate and finding grants, but now it’s really community outreach: finding internships, finding externships, finding people that are in the industry and having them come into our school or working our way to go out there. It’s really about trying to build that path between Akins and the community.”
Principal Daniel Girard said McGough’s job is to streamline and coordinate the outreach and partnership building work that happens across campus.
“In order for us to thrust ourselves to the next level — in terms of not just academically, and not just student performance — we have to focus on the refinement of the academy structure and to make sure that there are strong advisory councils within each academy, which takes some work.”
That is essentially “her role.” As a School Improvement Facilitator, McGoughs job is basically to help facilitate a better, more defined Akins.
While most students might not know what she does, they are familiar with some of her work, including setting up guest appearances from professionals who work with Mazda Sports as well as the KVUE and KXAN television stations.
A range of internal and external tasks all fall under McGough’s job. They all help Akins gain exposure and build stronger relationships with its community stakeholders.
Because McGough, who formerly taught science in the STEM academy, is not teaching classes this year, she has more time to help the school find funding to sponsor new programs. Searching for grants and building relationships with advisory boards is a time consuming process, which many classroom teachers don’t have a lot of time for, she said.
McGough is also in charge of the new official Akins Twitter account, which she uses to publicize the programs and success stories at the school.
Twitter and other forms of social media allow McGough to get in contact with multiple different groups of people outside of the school community.
Girard said he thinks Twitter is a “great way to publicize the positive things that happen at Akins and all of the positive components of our school, and things that are recurring with our students.
“Its a great way to advertise to our community as a whole. It really speaks positively to what our kids are doing,” he said.
Girard said he believes that “we have been at the forefront in terms of innovation and in terms of academic focus here.”
“I think where we’ll be is almost like this quantum leap to the next level, where that we’re really good right now, but soon we’ll be really great,” he said.
McGough said that she thinks that Akins accomplishments are sometimes overlooked and that she is working to correct that problem.
“I think that the biggest effect would be to have either people form the local community notice, or state, or nationally notice all the work we’re doing here, and the more you’re in the news, the more you’re notice and notice and notice,” McGough said.
She said her hope is that what she does will “help the school connect people to more people.”
