Anna Stubblefield

Anna Stubblefield sees public education as the great equalizer — at least, when “it’s done in the right fashion,” she says. The potential for education to empower and inspire students, even the most disadvantaged, is what led Stubblefield to pursue a career in special education 20 years ago, she says.

These days, the former teacher and coach remains most interested in working with at-risk students. That’s why Stubblefield, the district’s assistant superintendent of educational support and equity, says she’s not applying for Kyle Hayden’s superintendent job after his transfer to chief operations officer later this summer.

Anna Stubblefield

“I just feel like they know me,” Stubblefield, 43, says of Lawrence school families and staff. As one of two finalists for the district’s interim superintendent position, Stubblefield feels she’d be best suited for taking on the temporary role while keeping her current position, which will tentatively shift next month to deputy superintendent.

As an assistant superintendent, Stubblefield has overseen the district’s teaching and learning division, as well as the district’s ongoing equity work.

“I’m interested in the position because I just feel like this is a pivotal time for the district, with the momentum and the things that we have started to work on around our initiatives,” Stubblefield says of the interim superintendent role, adding, “I enjoy what I’m doing right now, and this is what’s right for me. But on an interim basis, I absolutely do feel like I could step up and fill the gap while we look for the next superintendent.”

Originally from Kansas City, Mo., Stubblefield says she joined the Lawrence district during the 2007-2008 school year after serving as a middle school assistant principal in the Blue Valley district and as a special education and English teacher, department chair and coach in Kansas City’s Center school district.

She holds a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees from the University of Kansas, an education specialist’s degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and a doctoral degree from Saint Louis University.

In the Lawrence district, Stubblefield served four years as principal of Liberty Memorial Central Middle School before moving to the district offices, where she also served four years as division director of human resources. She has spent the past year working as the district’s assistant superintendent of educational support, a role that expanded in early 2017 to include oversight of the district’s teaching and learning division as well as its ongoing equity work.

The Lawrence school board approved Stubblefield’s appointment to deputy superintendent last month, and in July she will officially assume her new responsibilities of providing support and enhancing communication and collaboration across all district departments.

As interim superintendent, Stubblefield says she’d remain involved with the district’s various advisory groups, including the Equity Council and District Equity Leadership Team Advisory (DELTA). The school board’s signature goals of “Equity, Excellence and Engagement,” she maintains, really are the most pressing challenges facing the Lawrence district today.

“I think all three of them go hand in hand,” Stubblefield says, referring to what she sees as a link between equitable, engaging learning environments and performance measures such as graduation rates and differing test scores among student groups.

In 2016, for example, more than 36 percent of the Lawrence district’s white students were considered “college-ready” by state assessments standards in math. About 12 percent of the district’s African-American students landed in the same category, illustrating the well-documented achievement gap between white students and their nonwhite peers that has presented a challenge for the Lawrence district as well as other school systems across the country.

Stubblefield says her educational philosophy has always focused on building relationships with students, including those most at risk, she says. And, in her tenure with the Lawrence district, Stubblefield says, she’s worked to foster strong relationships with students, parents and community members.

“Once you have a relationship where people can be as vulnerable as they need to be, and have the opportunity to take risks and also to develop and grow, that’s when education can do what it’s supposed to do, which is to provide opportunities and open doors for our students,” she says. “But we have to meet our students where they are in order to get that.”

Stubblefield interviewed with the Lawrence school board Wednesday for the interim superintendent position, which would likely go into effect July 1 as current Superintendent Kyle Hayden steps down and transfers to his new role as chief operations officer. The school board interviewed Diane DeBacker, a former Kansas education commissioner, for the interim superintendent position earlier this week. Both meetings, as well as visits with district administrators and Lawrence Education Association representatives, were closed to the public.

The school board will meet Tuesday to deliberate and appoint the new interim superintendent. A search for the next superintendent will begin in the fall, with plans to announce Hayden’s replacement by February 2018.