In only her second year at the helm, Shona Moore’s vision as principal of Taylor Creek Elementary School has turned struggling test scores into A’s for her campus.
Last week, Moore presented a campus update to the Lampasas Independent School District Board of Trustees. Instead of teachers telling students to pass the state assessments “or else,” Moore said she has emphasized baby steps to improve test scores.
“You don’t come in here and say we are going to be an ‘A’ school next year,” the principal said. “I never said we will be an ‘A’ school but improve every student by three questions.”
Moore said the “improve by three-questions mindset” enables students to flourish and takes the pressure off educators.
“And what happens is you just don’t improve by three questions, you improve by 10 questions,” she said. “It takes the stress off by just needing to improve by three questions.”
From the 2021 third-grade reading STAAR test to the 2022 exam, Taylor Creek students who approached grade-level learning in reading increased their scores by 25.71 points, on average. The trends are similar for all other STAAR exams in each grade level.
Moore believes any student can succeed no matter the circumstance. After all, her upbringing tells a tale of determination and grit.
Principal’s background
Moore was born in Gainesville to a 15-year-old mother and a 16-year-old father. Neither of her parents graduated from school. In grade school, Moore said she was one of those who struggled.
“To this day, I don’t like my first-grade teacher very much because I thought she going to kill me teaching me letters and sounds,” Moore said. “I didn’t know them. I had never seen letters or heard sounds.”
Growing up, she worked for one of her grandfather’s restaurants where her mother ended up in charge.
“By the time I was a fifth-grader, I bussed the tables; by the time I was in middle school I was waitressing and did that through high school,” Moore said. “When I graduated from school, I just knew to get married, and I didn’t know to do anything else. I didn’t know if I was going to work for the rest of my life or where I was going to be.”
After getting married at 18 years old and having a child at 20, Moore decided she wanted to pursue a college degree and become a teacher. She said her motivation for entering the education arena was to help those in tough scenarios.
Before coming to Lampasas, Moore worked in the Brady Independent School District. After serving in multiple assistant principal and principal roles, she finished her time in Brady as the principal at Brady Middle School. There, she turned a struggling campus into an “A”-rated school.
Moore said the key to a school’s success is to have everyone working on the same page.
“I know people are scrambling, but it is not rocket science,” she said.
Successful intervention
In January, Moore addressed the Texas Association of School Boards Midwinter Conference, the sole LISD educator to do so. A part of her presentation highlighted the importance of interventionists.
Interventionists observe instruction and work with students each day from all grade levels in 45-minute periods. Each interventionist has a specialized subject.
Moore said prior to her arrival at Taylor Creek Elementary, students would learn different material during homeroom class time versus the interventionist period. For example, during their homeroom, students may have been focusing on decimals while learning about fractions during the interventionist period.
Now, the interventionist period focuses on the material from the homeroom class. The smaller instruction setting in the interventionist period allows more time for oneon- one needs. This also gives struggling students an opportunity to learn the material in a different light.
“It doesn’t matter how low we are,” Moore said. “If we all work together and are on the same page, we are going to get these kids passing.”
Along with more efficient learning, students are having fun in the process. Recently, students who improved their STAAR scores by 10% went on a school trip to Putters & Gutters Fun Center. Also, Taylor Creek is the only school in the LISD to have two campus dogs, which the students treat at beloved pets.
With an empathetic principal and team of motivated educators striving to help students improve, Moore has demonstrated that any level of success is possible.
