New Principal: Teresa Laher dives in as administrator for Ritzville Schools

Just in time for the start of the school year, the Ritzville School District has added one more member to the faculty. Teresa Laher accepted the position of principal for the Ritzville Schools in mid-August, and the Ritzville School Board of Directors unanimously approved to hire her during the regular board member on Aug. 26.

The principal position for Lind-Ritzville High School and Ritzville Grade School became open for applications following the resignation of previous principal Cheryl Henjum, whose resignation was effective on Aug. 1. The short timeline for hiring a new individual into the position put stress on school administrators, but superintendent Rob Roettger shared at the school board meeting that he believes the school has made an excellent choice in hiring Laher to serve in the school district.

Laher earned her Bachelors of Education from Western Washington University in 1993, before continuing on to received her Masters in Education from Whitworth College in 2001. In 2009, Laher earned her administration leadership credentials from Whitworth.

Laher heard about the Ritzville job posting from a friend and even with the short timeline before the start of school, decided to apply for the position, as she believed it would be a good fit for her and the community. Originally from Spokane, Laher is currently in the process of moving to Ritzville with her husband Doug and their daughter, Etalem, and son, Kordell. Both of the Laher’s children are adopted from Ethiopia and will be attending school in Lind-Ritzville cooperative district.

For Laher, a career in education is the only path she knew she wanted to pursue. She said she realized at a young age that she wanted to be a teacher and feels blessed to have discovered her passion so early in life.

“I wanted to make a difference in kids’ lives. I’ve wanted to be in education since I was in third grade, I always knew what I was going to do,” Laher explained. “I love kids and I love working with them.”

Laher began her career as an educator as a high school teacher in the Shadle Park School District, where she taught health, fitness and leadership classes for 12 years. During her time as a teacher at Shadle Park, Laher also worked as the head women’s fastpitch coach at Whitworth for six years.

In 2006, Laher and her husband adopted their two children and Laher made the decision to stay at home with the children to help them adjust to the new lifestyle.

She returned to work as a principal intern at Cheney Middle School from 2008-09, before becoming the acting principal of the Cheney School District for one year in 2010. Laher’s most recent experience is as a teacher for the Central Valley School District in Spokane Valley where she taught last school year.

After accepting the position in the Ritzville School District, Laher did not skip a beat to become involved with learning about the local school system. With school beginning on Sept. 3, Laher knows she has a lot of ground to cover before the school doors open to students, but she believes between the school faculty and the previous administrators work, the school year should start without a hitch.

“The people are great I think it’s going to be an awesome school year. There are teachers of high quality and they are going to do excellent work,” Laher said about the faculty.

Having a strong faculty is key to effectively running a school district, and having teachers engaged in wanting to have the students succeed is important, Laher said. By having talented faculty members and providing students with the best quality of learning, it creates a school system residents can be proud of, Laher explained.

“I just want the community to look at the Ritzville school district and the cooperative and say ‘I’m so glad I support our schools,’” Laher said.

Laher has spent just over a week working with school administrators and faculty in order to start the school year off with a solid working relationship and a cohesive understanding of the district’s goals for the year. The most important element of keeping a cohesive school system is through the collaboration time, which takes place on Mondays when the students have late start.

“The collaboration that we do is critical to improving student achievement,” Laher explained. “We need that time, it’s only going to help. That’s an enrichment time; that’s where we come together and have conversations about doing great things with the kids.”

Laher is glad that collaboration time has already been implemented into the district and believes it is one of the biggest benefits the faculty has to continuing to develop as teachers to improve the educational opportunities for students. She is also excited about the practices at the elementary level that Henjum instilled in the school throughout the past two years.

“She (Henjum) set a strong foundation in the elementary school and created programs that will help students excel in reading and math,” Laher said.

With the elementary having the groundwork already laid out, Laher is planning to turn her focus to the high school and work with teachers to continue to create more opportunities for students. Laher is pleased to find that the cooperative already has strong extracurricular activities and organizations, as well as a solid athletic program. While athletics aren’t the most important part of school, Laher said, sports are great part of education.

Laher encourages students, staff and parents to contact her by email at [email protected] or stop by the Ritzville Schools to schedule an appointment. She wants to have an open door policy to allow input and concerns to be heard and considered.

“I want the school to be a place where students want to come,” Laher said. “I want them to take pride in their school.”