Students, parents and staff at Helen Haller Elementary School will see a familiar face in a new role next fall.

Becky Stanton will see plenty of new faces at the youngest level come September as Helen Haller’s first assistant principal, helping principal Russ Lodge with a number of administrative duties from teacher evaluations and mentoring, handling discipline and attendance issues, and aiding staff in the transition to the district’s first year of full-day kindergarten.

“I get to really support teachers with what they need and increase student learning,” Stanton said.

Stanton has 10 years of teaching experience, with six years at the fourth-grade level and the last four in physical education, kindergarten and last year’s split between kindergarten “teacher on special assignment.” Stanton served half of her day as a kind of administrative support role in conjunction with studies via the University of Washington-Bothell.

Next fall, Stanton’s role takes a step up; with the assistant principal designation, Stanton will now be able to conduct staff evaluations.

“She’s been in that role for two years; this is really going to be an extension of what she’s been doing anyway,” Lodge said.

“It (an assistant principal at Helen Haller) always has been needed since I’ve been here,” said Lodge, principal at Helen Haller since 2012. “The (incoming) 100 kindergarteners really puts it over the top. We’re expecting there will be a lot of intervention from us. (All-day kindergarten) it’ll become the norm in a couple of years.”

Lodge said Stanton is a great fit for the assistant principal position. “She doesn’t get too high or too low,” he said. “The school year is a series of ups and downs and you have to weather those things when that happens. You’ve got to communicate with students, staff, parents, community, and you’ve got to understand how it all fits together. Becky does really that. She excels at it.”

Sequim schools superintendent Kelly Shea said Helen Haller Elementary fits the requirements of a two-administrator building with about 600 students in attendance each year. Shea said the district leaves it to the building principals to recommend how to shape their school’s administration, but that Greywolf, Sequim’s other elementary school, doesn’t fit the model of having a second administrator, having fewer students and programs and a lower free and reduced lunch rate.

“What I see in this is that teachers and students and parents (at Helen Haller) are able to get a quicker response to situations that occur in the school day,” Shea said.

Stanton’s role with teacher evaluations is critical as well, Shea said.

“Teachers are challenged by amount of time required to do new teacher evaluations; conservative estimates are that they are three to four times longer than older models,” Shea said. “There are only so many hours in a day.”

Stanton said she was considering transitioning from teaching to either a school counseling role or administration when a conversation with colleague Mary Ann Unger turned her toward administration.

“It was the last little push that I needed,” Stanton said.

Stanton said there’s a misconception about assistant principals, that they are all about discipline. At Helen Haller Elementary, she said, the staff is more concerned about re-teaching students.

“It all depends on the student and situation,” she said. Discipline can take the form of having student review posters describing expectations of proper behavior at school, writing an apology letter or seeing an administrator during recess.

“Every kid, they’re all different; they have different needs,” Stanton said.