By L. Parsons Following a long process and many interviews that included a public forum, the Winslow Unified School District has hired Kathryn Zanin as their new Superintendent. Zanin will follow in the footsteps of outgoing Superintendent Cyndie Mattox who will vacate the position on May 29. Zanin will begin June 1. Winslow was an attractive community to Zanin who hails from Sahaurita. “I love small, rural communities. Winslow is one that I have traveled through on trips and I love the area. The scenic views and the people of the community just solidify the fact that this is the place for me.” She plans to integrate herself in to the tight knit community of Winslow as soon as she moves to town. “My husband will be staying in Sahaurita but when he comes up north, we will be exploring the creek for fishing. I will likely join the Civil Air Force squadron in Flagstaff, and I plan on getting involved with the Rotary and those types of things to make those connections with people. I am excited to attend Friday night football games and things like that to be a part of the family that is Winslow. The first thing is going to be to get to know people and build relationships.” Zanin has been in the education field for over 30 years. She has served in the capacities of teacher, administrator, athletic coach, reading specialist and transportation director. Most recently, she has been the principal at Intermountain Academy in the Tucson area. Intermountain is a specialized educational institution, educating children on the autism spectrum. Zanin explained that working with such students has shown her behavioral and mental health support of students is a vital piece of their education. She continued, “Not every child learns the same. So while we recognize the importance of data, maybe standardized testing shouldn’t have such a heavy influence on what we do. Those tests are a snapshot of one moment in the student’s life and not necessarily the best measure of what that child is learning.” Zanin spoke often of the importance of “educating the whole child.” Her philosophy combines the collection and use of data as well as the administering of compassion for students and their families. “The truth is, we don’t know where all of these kids come from, we don’t know what their lives are like at home. I do believe that education needs to be a family affair. If they need food or clothing, we are going to be there for our students.” Zanin has a plan for leadership in WUSD. “My leadership style is what I called ‘shared leadership.’ I like to listen to what others have to say and hear what opinions are. I don’t have all of the answers.” She did explain that she is prepared for working with the variety of demographics in the Winslow school system. “The beauty of growing up in Southern Arizona is that I am really in tune to being open to a variety of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds. We do have Native American tribes surrounding our area. I have worked with low socio-economic students and very high socio-economic students. I want to approach this by building relationships with people that will let me know how to navigate the culture of Winslow and all of its families.” The statewide school closure due to COVID-19 has touched Zanin. “This breaks my heart greatly that the Navajo Nation has been hit so hard by the coronavirus. A lot of it is because of the conditions on the reservation, including not having running water or electricity in the home. I want to know what we can do about that. I also want to know why our kids are having to travel two hours to go to school and be separated from their families. Again, I’m not going to come in with all of the answers but what I am going to do is build a community of dialogue and make changes that are positive on behalf of all children.” Moving forward she said, “I’m not going to say whether closing schools was the right or the wrong thing to do. What we need to do is start forward thought on what we are going to do to close the gap created by this. We need to figure out what we are going to do to celebrate our seniors, the class of 2020. I am not sure how that is going to look, we will have to ask the community. We also need to look forward to cheering our kids going back to school. When I get there on June 1, we will evaluate what the next steps will be.”
