Gary Miller

 

What is your number one concern for the 2023-2024 school year?

I’m relatively new to Cloverleaf. I came to the district at the tail end of COVID-19 in the 2021-22 school year. Therefore, a challenge for me was learning about everything that happened at Cloverleaf HS before COVID-19. As we move into the 2023-24 school year, my primary concerns are:

 

1. Assessing our needs as a building post-COVID

2. Exploring new curriculum, programming, and initiatives that will allow us to serve our students best

3. Preparing to move our High School into a new state-of-the-art building

 

One of the new initiatives we are exploring is a possible partnership with PublicSchoolWORKS to streamline our data collection and analysis of student data as we relaunch some pre-COVID initiatives, as well as working on the climate and operations of the building.

What is your vision for the district in the next 5 years?

Historically, the district has faced a lot of financial barriers. In recent years these barriers have been reduced. Therefore, the district has a much brighter future. It is allowing us to pursue exciting opportunities currently, and over the next 5 years:

 

• Facility Improvements – We are adding a lot of new facilities on campus currently and in the near future. A new high school, a new middle school, a renovated stadium and athletic fields, and a new Board of Education Office.
• Curriculum Enhancement & Expansion – My predecessor did a lot of work adding a lot of Advanced Placement and College Credit Plus course offerings. This has given our students access to a more rigorous curriculum. Our students also have access to a state-of-the-art career center. However, there’s still a niche of students who are not interested in going to college and are not attracted to the programs at the career center. Therefore, we need to be responsive to the kinds of programming that we’re offering to these students to be engaging, purposeful, and meaningful to prepare them for the future. We want to set them up for success, regardless of what they decide to do.

How do you see the role of technology education?

When we were facing COVID, we saw the benefit of technology quickly. While not perfect, it did allow us to provide some educational opportunities. With education in the post-COVID environment, using 1-to-1 devices combined with in-person instruction has become the norm for most. Technology has become a powerful communication tool for students and teachers, as well as a highly integrated part of our instructional practice. Even so, education is still a people business. Technology is a tool that has enhanced the educational process, but COVID has helped us to understand that in-person contact is still essential.

How are you approaching teacher retention and staff shortages?

I’ve worked in districts that are as small as 600 students and districts as large as 15,000 students. In all the places I’ve worked in my career, I think one of the things that makes a difference is culture. Cloverleaf has a great culture, and that’s been perpetuated by the Superintendent, who has been here for 16 years. His longevity has allowed him to focus on putting together a solid administrative team. He’s very invested in the district and the people here.

 

How have you cultivated an environment that supports student mental health?

The one thing I think is very important is how kids perceive adults. What I have always tried to do is make sure that students know that I have an open-door policy. You hear that constantly, but I try to encourage and support that. I could be knee-deep in paperwork, but if a member of our office staff comes to me and says, “Hey, there’s a student here who needs to see you. Do you have time?” I may not have time, but I will make the time or have that student return later on because it’s something important to them. Making students feel like you are accessible, and that you follow through with what you say creates that trust. When you have that trust, it fosters some very positive outcomes.

Our counseling department also does a phenomenal job of working with students and following up with our students to support their needs. We are probably one of the few schools that I have worked in that has taken the initiative to hire prevention counselors in each of our buildings and integrate them into the fabric of what we do daily. The prevention counselors in each building are there to work with kids, specifically on mental health, helping them to develop coping skills and educating them on how they can help themselves. The students know they can work with that particular counselor to work through issues or confide in them about different things besides our other school counselors. Our counselors also put our students, as well as families, in touch with outside agencies that might be able to help support those students if needed.

What measures are in place to ensure the safety of student athletes?

Our Athletic Director does an excellent job of ensuring that our coaches are meeting the requirements of the state by taking proper safety courses and making sure they’re correctly certified if we have an emergency occur when they’re in charge of our students, whether it’s practice, games, competitions, etc.

We also have a relationship with the Cleveland Clinic and their sports medicine program. We partner with them and have an athletic trainer here on campus daily to advise our student-athletes and our coaches, about the health of our kids.

We make sure that we do impact testing for concussions, for many of our high school and middle school athletes. Especially those who are in high-impact sports. As a result, we have baseline testing information to ensure that students are not coming back too early from a possible concussion or a concussion situation.

We have also done a lot of work to ensure we have AEDs on campus and in different places throughout the district. Whether it’s our stadium, recreation center, or various hallways in the building.

We provide our athletes with various educational materials and/or information that is recommended by the Ohio High School Athletic Association or other medical agencies.