Stacy Knudson speaks at the Wallowa School District community forum on Friday, Feb. 2. On Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, the Wallowa School Board named Knudson as the next superintendent for the school. 

WALLOWA — Stacy Knudson, the superintendent of Eddyville Charter School in Oregon, will be the next superintendent of the Wallowa School District.

The Wallowa School Board made the announcement on Wednesday, Feb. 7, after agreeing on a contract with Knudson.

She will start working in Wallowa in July. Details of the contract were not immediately released.

Knudson, a 44-year-old Oregon native, earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in education, both from Oregon State University. 

“I dedicated my life to a career in education for the last 23 years,” she said in a brief interview on Wednesday. “I am very excited to see where we grow and expand. I am excited for the chance to build relationships with the parents, the staff, and the students. We can’t accomplish our goals without a team approach,” 

Knudson was one of three finalists who visited the school on Friday for final interviews with the board and to meet with members of the public in a community forum.

In her forum, she laid out her goals for the school and highlighted how those fit with the goals of the district, its parents, and its students.

She said her goals for her first year in the job would be “Unifying the community, the staff, the students, and getting on the same page with our vision. And expanding programs, enhancing what’s already here.” 

She added that the school needs to “make sure that every single student can be successful, in our daily practices, monthly practices, and then throughout the year.” 

She said it’s important for the school to have “a quality curriculum that is scientifically backed, to support your staff so that what they are instructing is proven to be effective.”

“Through that instruction, there should be ample time to meet consistently, looking at data, discussing interventions, what’s effective, what’s not effective, and then making adjustments,” she said.

Her plan to support and empower teachers begins with making sure that the staff feels supported.

“We need to train them,” she said. “We need to bring in the professional development, the training, the resources, so that they have the tools to do these hard jobs that we’re asking them to do.”

Wallowa faces challenges that may not be recognized at the state level, she said.

“Wallowa knows what Wallowa needs,” she said. “Salem doesn’t necessarily know what’s best here. This job is an investment in the community, in time, in humans.”

Knudson said she knows that her goals are attainable, but not overnight.

“That takes time,” she said. “That takes not just one or two professional development days, that’s years, consistent training, over and over and over again. And as you advance in your level of comprehension and application, then you just take it to the next level. We’re not really done with that training. It just continues.”

The other two finalists for the job were:

• Thomas Brandt, an executive principal with the Dallas School District in Texas.

• Melissa Skinner, the executive director of leadership at the Ector County School District in Texas.

Jennifer Johnson is currently serving as the interim superintendent for the Wallowa School District.