As students at Vale Middle School filed into the classroom, they were introduced to a new principal.
Weeks before the first day of school, district administrators hired Kayla Roberts as the school’s new principal.
Roberts is in her first role as principal, succeeding Lisa Andersen, who now heads up the middle school’s special education and student success programs.
Roberts taught math for 13 years at Mountain View High School in Meridian, Idaho and then returned to school in 2020 to earn a master’s degree in administration. Since graduating, she has been looking for an administrator position.
Roberts, 36, and her family are personally connected to the region. Her husband, Nick Roberts, a web developer, grew up in Nyssa. They live in Nampa with their two kids, a girl and a boy.
Roberts said she always wanted to be a teacher. Roberts, a straight-A student, took to math quickly. She also soon found a passion for helping her classmates and began tutoring students and volunteered to be a teacher’s aide whenever the opportunity arose.
“Math came easy to me, and I enjoyed helping other students understand it. Seeing that light go on when they finally get it is what I love,” Roberts said.
She said she is excited about building close relationships with students and staff, especially in a small-town setting.
With nearly 150 students, Vale Middle School will present more opportunities than Mountain View High School, where there were some 2,500 kids.
Roberts said there are challenges educators are trying to get in front of.
She said access to technology in the classroom benefits students.
According to Roberts, educators can use technology in the classroom and teach students how to use it “in a good way” to get the information they need to be successful.
Roberts said the technology students have at their fingertips today did not exist when she was in school. As technology advanced, few in education taught students how to use it properly. The goal, she said, is for education to integrate technology into “old school” teaching methods.
Student behavior is a challenge for educators, Roberts said. She said what works for one student might not work for another. The challenge for educators, Roberts said, is to differentiate between the students and learn what their needs are to help them be successful.
That can be difficult when a teacher has not built a relationship with a student, according to Roberts.
She said cultivating that relationship can be difficult if a teacher does not know a student. She said getting to know students helped her throughout her teaching career.
“Building those relationships is key to helping students be more successful,” she said.
Middle schoolers have “a lot going on,” Roberts said.
At Vale Middle School students in seventh and eighth grade are moving from class to class for the first time, which is a significant change from staying in one classroom through the day.
She notes the students are 12 and 13. She has a 12-year-old at home.
“There’s just a lot going on in their lives that we, as adults, forget about,” she said. “Until you’re sitting with them all the time, you don’t remember how hard it was.”
Roberts said one goal is to improve math and science test scores for middle school students. In math, the middle school was 21% above the state average in 2023, while in science last year, the middle schoolers tested 13% above the rest of Oregon. She said there’s a district-wide push to up the scores.
Before Roberts arrived, the middle school had begun scheduling an extra period to practice math, which will continue this school year.
She said it’s “amazing” that administrators created that to give students time to practice and solidify the concepts. She said as a math teacher she would have loved the extra time with students.
Roberts said that she was worried the transition would be difficult because she is not from Vale. However, she said everyone’s been welcoming and helpful.
“I’m really glad the community has the atmosphere of everybody’s in it together and we are a team and we’re working together to do what’s best for students,” Roberts said.
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