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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.
Dr. Kathleen E.K. Truitt is a magnificent force. The very definition of that word, force, describes the dynamic leadership that she has exemplified since her arrival to Lee County Schools. She couples her experiential strength within the educational arena with her infectious energy and creates intentional movement that provokes positive change. We have a wonderful school system that boasts academic excellence, but we did not realize the magnitude of opportunities for growth and improvement that were possible until viewing our daily operations, communications, and instructional practices through Dr. Truitt’s visionary lens. Dr. Truitt demonstrates excellence and leadership by leading with a ‘no excuses’ philosophy. That philosophy says that, as leaders, we should eliminate any barrier or excuse that may prohibit a staff member or stakeholder from understanding or receiving a piece of communication. Under her leadership, we have started communicating with families both through our parent portal as well as our communication platform ensuring that every person has access to information in whatever way they choose to receive it. In an effort to ensure proper and efficient cascading of information from the district office to the district-at-large, Dr. Truitt restructured the organization by redefining roles and responsibilities and fine-tuning the internal leadership pipeline. System Leadership meetings have been restructured and repurposed to include professional development and hands-on approaches to navigating challenging situations. Dr. Truitt implemented one-to-one sessions with her Executive and Senior Director team – her Cabinet – to provide a forum for no-stakes feedback, honest dialogue, and constructive leadership development. She welcomes mistakes as an opportunity to learn and improve. In the areas where our organization lacked structure, she put into effect systems that optimized and produced a desired outcome - a communication chain-of-command, a well defined internal professional development plan, a creation of procedural documentation for discipline and safety, and so much more. Through her impactful, fast-paced leadership and pursuit of excellence, Dr. Truitt has codified a culture of transparency, accountability, and viability.
Dr. Kathleen Truitt is passionate about transparent communication and sharing the district’s story – all the great things we are achieving as a school system. Thus, she has implemented several communication programs since starting at the Lee County School System to enhance the distribution and reception of information, three of which will be highlighted. First, in an effort to elevate and empower the stakeholder voice, Dr. Truitt created Superintendent Advisory Councils. These councils are representative of every stakeholder group: Faith-Based Advisory Council, Business Advisory Council, Family Advisory Council, Student Advisory Councils (fifth grade; middle school; high school), and Staff Advisory Council. To make membership into the council accessible for all, Dr. Truitt sent out invitations for the Family and Staff Advisories utilizing a Google Form - anyone could complete the form to express interest. Invitations for the Business and Faith-Based Advisories were also shared broadly on social media and through email. Dr. Truitt meets with each advisory group three times a year. Secondly, it was Dr. Truitt’s vision to have a highly effective and unified governance team which is largely based on communication and transparency. In order to realize that vision, she developed the Weekly Board Update. This correspondence is sent every week to the Board of Education members from the office of the Superintendent giving high-level details about events, updates, relevant data points, and departmental notices that keep board members informed. Board of Education members receive this correspondence via email and are also able to receive a hard copy upon request. It is because of the successful implementation of this communication program and several other factors, that our Board of Education was just recognized for the first time ever as a Georgia School Boards Association's Exemplary Board. Lastly, Dr. Truitt’s Entry Plan for her first 100 days included hosting focus groups to meet and hear from stakeholder groups around the community and within the school system. From these focus sessions, she learned that: there was a post-COVID decay in trust, specifically for public education; that the perception of the community was athletics was more important than academics; and in addition to that, our educators were also experiencing burnout and felt unrecognized for their efforts. Dr. Truitt envisioned a social media campaign called Classroom of the Day which she, in collaboration with the Communications Department, created. The goal was three-fold: to rebuild trust within the community for public education, to honor teachers, and to highlight student learning, transparency, and diversity in classroom instruction. Classrooms across our district were highlighted through a series of multimedia presentations, including social media posts and video clips. To be featured, teachers received nominations from students and families. The nominations were reviewed and voted on by community members giving the community a voice in the recognition. The campaign was tremendously successful (on Facebook alone, videos received over 23,000 views) and has strengthened the bond between our schools and the community by promoting a shared understanding of the importance of public education.
Dr. Truitt has incited a cultural transformation within our organization in regards to the way we strategize. Our System Priorities for the 2024-2025 school year, which are an extension of our strategic plan, were developed under her visionary leadership with four main areas of focus. One of those areas encompasses communication. An action item within that focus area is "Tell our Story". As a strong and strategic communicator, one of Dr. Truitt’s goals is to ensure common and consistent messaging across the district by utilizing narratives and consistent branding. Within her first six months, she rebranded the district with new logos, departmental stationary, and presentation templates to achieve that goal. Another goal is to "build systems of communication". As aforementioned, Dr. Truitt’s organizational restructuring assisted in building systems of communication where information could be effectively cascaded. The System Priorities have been shared within Dr. Truitt’s Advisory Council meetings as well as on the Let’s Talk Lee podcast that we recently launched, also a byproduct of her vision.
Dr. Truitt has been immensely present and involved. One stakeholder said, “I see her everywhere”! She makes an assertive effort to attend contests from every athletic program, performances from every Fine Arts program, and competitions involving our Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education programs. District-wide, across all grade bands. Upon her arrival, she hosted 38 total focus groups to engage with and speak to the community; internal and external. Dr. Truitt has been very quick to respond to media inquiries from local stations and to inform families of incidents involving their student(s). She even requested a meeting with the News Director and Station Manager at our largest local news station to enhance collaboration and foster a better understanding of the impact of media coverage. During the 2023-2024 school year, misinformation was spreading throughout the community, so to provide a forum for open dialogue and to share correct and factual information, Dr. Truitt hosted a town-hall type event called Coke & Conversations where she invited stakeholders to come have a Coca-Cola and speak with her in-person. The event was well attended with standing room only. Dr. Truitt also participates in formal and informal classroom observations to better engage in the work and conversation of classroom instruction. Experiencing learning strategies, first-hand, alongside gathering campus-based data allows her to make the best decisions for students. Dr. Kathleen Truitt is a leader of leaders, pulling out the greatness within. She models succinct and meaningful communication to her staff and expects the redelivery of information to be accurate and timely. As stated earlier, she restructured and repurposed leadership meetings to model the dissemination of information and the collaborative impact of purposeful gatherings. Her systemic approach to guiding the operational, instructional, and financial sectors of the Lee County School System and deliberately communicating their functionality and impact has fundamentally changed the trajectory of our organization; for the better.
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.