Walking down the halls of Riverbend Elementary with Principal Michelle Byer at lunchtime is like walking down the street with a celebrity.
Students stop her to say “Hi!,” give her a hug, and hand her “We will miss you!” drawings. Teachers approach her to check in to about plans for the rest of the afternoon.
It’s safe to say next school year won’t be same. Byer is retiring at the end of this school year.
“It is going to be super hard to leave,” Byer said while sitting in her office. “I am going to miss the kids.”
Byer is retiring so she can take care of her stepfather. Byer said her mother died two years ago and her stepfather was living with her son. But then Byer’s husband, Michael, suggested they have her stepfather live with them. Byer said she is simply paying him back for the hard work he put in during her childhood.
“My family had a really tough upbringing,” Byer said. “When (my stepfather) married my mother, he pretty much saved us. When I really thought about how much he gave to me to me so I could be OK, I knew I needed to give back to him.”
Byer took over as Riverbend’s principal four years ago. Because of her background as an administrator in several levels of schools in urban and rural areas, she believed she would be able to transition into the position without any major issues.
“I thought this would be no problem and I would walk in the door and everything would be great,” Byer said. “After I had been here for a month, I realized there are a lot of significant needs here. These kids need so much more than I initially thought.”
Issues surrounding poverty among the student body were the main concern of Byer and her staff. According to the Juneau School District 2017 demographics chart, Riverbend has 44 percent of its students in the the free/reduced lunch program, which is higher than the district average of 28 percent.
“The kids were experiencing things because their parents were experiencing things,” Byer said. “We wanted to give the kids a place where they could come and feel really safe and cared for.”
Byer and her staff began a major effort to build relationships between students and staff in order to help provide a better learning environment. The goal was to improve social skills not only between students and teachers but between students and their peers.
Byer set out her vision by adding trauma-sensitivity training for teachers, funded by several different grants. The training involved addressing learning difficulties that arise out of problems at home, malnutrition or shelter. According to traumasensitiveschools.org, “responses to traumatic events can interfere with a child’s ability to learn at school.”
“We made this unbelievable shift to learning that the children’s experience makes it so that they are just trying to figure out the world around them,” Byer said.
Byer said one of the changes made in helping get children engaged in the learning process was changing the school’s suspension rule. Byer said unless something significant happened or would involve a safety issue, the school would no longer suspend children from school.
Keeping children in classrooms as much as possible ties into the social skills Byer said Riverbend wanted children to learn.
“I really want the kids to learn to read, write and be able to do math,” Byer said. “The new skills for successful people are that they are able to develop relationships with people. Skills that you can learn and be able to work alongside with others is more important in the 21st century. We have really worked on the social-emotional piece. I really do fundamentally believe that if the kids can work together, get along and support each other and have empathy and kindness, they will learn these skills.”
Taking all that into account, Byer said, has changed the elementary school’s mission statement to “Riverbend is a safe place where we feed our minds, bodies and hearts. It is our school family.”
Byer said the staff has embraced this philosophy. Byer said she also implemented a “shared leadership approach” with staff that allowed them to share ideas more freely and play up their strengths.
“There are so many strengths on this staff, that it would be wise to continue to use their talents,” Byer said. “I think it is really important to respect the staff you work with. I have always worked under the belief, that there is no job too great or too small and that we are on a level playing field. The only thing that changes is the job description.”
Allowing teachers to focus on their strengths, third-grade teacher TJ Cramer said, really played a role in how teachers were able to perform their duties.
“If we had an idea, she would be super supportive,” Cramer said. “I wanted to do a songwriting program (with Juneau Alaska Music Matters) and she supported it. We have an amazing staff and she really let us blend.”
Cramer, who has worked with Byer for three years, said the work Byer put into changing the school’s atmosphere made it feel like a better place.
“Michelle really focused on kids with a trauma-filled background,” Cramer said. “From what I heard before I started working here, it is a much warmer place. It is a school where the children feel loved.”
Jenn Lanz, who has two children at Riverbend and is the resident of the Parent Teacher Organization, said Byer’s approach has helped build more than just a better school.
“I have never met anyone with a bigger heart,” Lanz said. “She embodied everything we want Riverbend to be. She met every one of those kiddos with a hug. It is more than a school, it is a family.”
• Contact reporter Gregory Philson at gphilson@juneauempire.com or call at 523-2265. Follow him on Twitter at @GTPhilson.
Principal Michelle Byer and April Henderson, left, watch as second-grader Natalia Vrell shows off her one-handed cartwheel during Riverbend Elementary School’s outing to the Dimond Park Fieldhouse on Monday, May 21, 2018. Byer is retiring after four years at the school.
Riverbend Elementary School Principal Michelle Byer hands first-grader Tristan Hook his medal after an end-of-the-year run at the Dimond Park Fieldhouse on Monday, May 21, 2018. Byer is retiring after four years at the school.
