Superintendent's Message

2011-2012 is another year of continuous learning and growth opportunities.  It is our intentional effort at ESD 105 that we meet the needs of our constituency with immediate, deliberate action and services.

Your ESD 105 staff members who are stationed in our Maggie Perez Student Center, our A.W. Allen Business Building, and in sites throughout our school districts continue to learn together with you, and our focus is to serve first.  Whether it be providing training and assistance for fiscal and technology support or providing embedded professional development, we strive to deliver what our districts need. Back during the fall of 2010, we conducted an on-line needs assessment survey to provide better service and training, and its findings continue to guide our strategic work in helping our local educators meet the needs of their students.

Realizing that a quality education can change a life forever, the charge of each program director is to be proactive in their learning and expertise.  The new performance-based paradigm creates a shared accountability for more lead learners and engaged mentors in a student’s life; furthermore, it is essential that by working closely with each district the new learnings and added skills are translated with integrity in each and every classroom. At the end of day, the performance of the educators in the classroom, schools, districts, and ESD will be measured by how many students meet and exceed the standards. Research validates that from the first day a child enters preschool or kindergarten until the student receives his or her high school diploma that the most significant factor in student success is not the student’s skin color or culture, the family socioeconomics, or the language spoken.  It is the teacher in the classroom, and the instructional leader in the school and district. Our charge is to improve teaching and accelerate learning

Embracing this responsibility for each student’s success, together we will blaze new trails off the beaten paths for improving our present systems and discovering new avenues for building learning capacity, one mind at a time.

All of us at ESD 105 look forward to serving you! If you have questions about our service, cooperatives, professional development or programs, please call us at 575-2885.

Steve Myers, ESD 105 Superintendent
steve.myers@esd105.org

About Steve Myers:

Steve Myers began his duties as the sixth superintendent of ESD 105 on July 1, 2010.  The longtime area education advocate previously served as the superintendent of the Toppenish School District from 2003 to 2010.

Steve's career in public education began by serving students as a teacher at the Boone Grove School District in Boone Grove, Indiana, initially as a fifth and sixth grade teacher during 1971-72, then as a high school social studies teacher there during 1972-75.  He then joined Cape Fear Academy in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he worked as an English teacher during 1976-82, then as an upper school director during 1982-83.

Steve came to the Toppenish School District in 1983 as social studies teacher, then moved into administrative roles with the school district the following year.  He was the Toppenish High School assistant principal from 1984 to 1992 and its principal from 1992 to 2001, then began a two-year tenure as the school district’s assistant superintendent.

On a regional level, Steve has worked with other school district superintendents within the ESD 105 area in helping improve instructional capacity programs at schools, and at the state level has served on OSPI’s Superintendents Advisory Committee.

As superintendent at Toppenish, Steve facilitated the development of professional learning programs that helped usher dramatic improvements in test scores and high school graduation rates at the 3,500-student district.  He helped create an in-district preschool cooperative in partnership with EPIC, Yakama Nation Head Start, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  He also helped design and implement intervention processes for breakfast and homework clubs that have contributed to significant gains for students on state assessments.

During the time he led Toppenish schools, the district was honored by:
• U.S. News and World Report as having one of the best high schools in the nation
• the U.S. Department of Agriculture for having the first elementary schools in the state to accomplish the National U.S. Healthier You Challenge
• McGraw Hill/SRA for having one of four elementary schools in the nation receiving its Excellence in Reading Award
• Family Friendly Schools for implementing measures to engage families in student learning
• the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction as one of the state's “Schools of Distinction” award recipients.

Steve obtained his B.A. degree in Social Studies in 1970 from Grace College in Indiana, and his master’s of science degree in education from Indiana University in 1974.