Awards Award Winners Superintendents to Watch Honorees Kathleen Truitt, Ed.D.

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. 

The following was submitted as part of the nomination package for Dr. Truitt. Stay tuned to hear more from Dr. Truitt on the importance of communication over the coming year.

A Magnificent Force

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. Lee County Schools is a wonderful school system that boasts academic excellence; the magnitude of opportunities for growth and improvement were more fully realized by viewing 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 leaders 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, the district has started communicating with families both through a parent portal as well as a 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 the 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.

Elevating Stakeholder Voice

Dr. 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. 
• 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 that 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 the 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 schools and the community by promoting a shared understanding of the importance of public education.

A Cultural Transformation

Dr. Truitt has incited a cultural transformation within the organization in regards to strategizing. The district's System Priorities for the 2024-2025 school year, which are an extension of its 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 and presentation templates to help support that goal. Another goal is to "build systems of communication." As mentioned, 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 was recently launched, also a byproduct of her vision.

Present and Involved

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 Career, Technical and Agricultural Education programs.

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 the area's largest local news station to enhance collaboration and foster a better understanding of the impact of media coverage.

During the 2023-2024 school year, Dr. Truitt hosted a town-hall type event called Coke & Conversations where she invited stakeholders to come have a soda and speak with her in-person to provide a forum for open dialogue and to share correct and factual information. 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, along with gathering campus-based data allows her to make the best decisions for students.

Dr. 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. 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 the organization for the better.