Superintendent

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Socorro Shiels joins the Santa Rosa City School District with nearly 20 years of educational experience. She brings combined elementary and secondary experience to the district as well as passion and expertise in quality second language instruction, curriculum and assessment as well as meeting the needs of advanced learners at the elementary and secondary level.

Prior to joining Santa Rosa City Schools, as the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services in the Morgan Hill Unified School District, she led several key district initiatives including building a common benchmark assessment system, creating new magnet schools including a Dual Language program, and becoming a standards driven school district. These new endeavors included the voice and professional expertise of teachers, administrators and parents. The thorough implementation process also included powerful professional development that ensured growing organizational capacity to meet the needs of students. This work demonstrates her commitment to professional collaboration, high quality instruction, and the involvement of many stakeholders.

Prior to Morgan Hill, she was the Program Director of District and School Support Services for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. In this position, Ms. Shiels assisted schools and districts in various stages of program improvement, leverage resources for school reform, and increased educational opportunities for all students. She began her career as a bilingual teacher and has worked both as a high school vice principal and an elementary principal. She also served as the Director of Multicultural Education and Professional Development in a secondary district in Sacramento.

Ms. Shiels led her district out of the Comite/ Office of Civil Rights review process for districts failing to meet the needs of English Learners. Additionally, she ensured that same urban secondary district passed the Categorical Program Monitoring process (CPM) with no areas of non-compliance, a rare occurrence for secondary English Learner (EL) programs. Ms. Shiels is currently completing her PhD at UC Davis. She is specializing in issues of English Learner assessment.

Ms. Shiels is excited and eager to meet the staff, students and community members of Santa Rosa. She will begin her role in SRCS with an in-depth learning and listening tour during which she will use to gain an understanding of the current work of the district and to align the board and community goals

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