Dr. Susan Enfield: Leading With A Promise

About ten miles south of Seattle sits a school district with a bold promise: to know each and every one of its students by name, strength, and need. This promise may seem hard to keep in an urban school system where the student body speaks over 100 languages, but Dr. Susan Enfield is making it happen.

When she took the helm at Highline Public Schools in 2012, Dr. Enfield began working towards a seemingly impossible goal: virtually eliminating out-of-school suspensions. The year before she began, the district saw around 2,200 suspensions—most of them for students of color. In 2019, there were just 940—out of more than 19,000 students.

But what Enfield calls the Highline Promise is about more than just discipline reform. It’s about seeing every child’s gifts and making them feel welcome in their school community.

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Enfield not just about how that promise informs their discipline changes but also how it guides every person and decision in the district.

Dr. Susan Enfield (@SuptEnfield)

Highline Schools (@HighlineSchools)

Check out more about Dr. Enfield's work on Equity at schoolceo.com/enfield.

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