Angela Gabbard, principal of Lindeman Elementary in the Erlanger-Elsmere Independent School District, was named the Kentucky School Counselor Association‘s Principal of the Year at an awards banquet during their annual conference in Lexington today.
Gabbard was nominated for the award by the counselors and staff members she leads due to her strong leadership, progressive advocacy, and diligence in creating a school climate where students feel safe, happy, and poised for growth.
Angela Gabbard
During her three years as the school’s principal, Gabbard has made increasing the counseling support available to Lindeman’s students one of her top priorities. As a result, the school has quadrupled its counseling services.
When Gabbard took the helm, Lindeman had just one half-time counselor; today, the school employs two full-time professional school counselors plus two clinical counselors and benefits from an increased amount of community services and relationships, due in large part to her emphasis on educating the whole child.
“Mrs. Gabbard is progressive and advanced in her understanding of professional school counseling: she supports and encourages the implementation of a comprehensive, data-driven, evidence-based school counseling program,” her nomination read. “She has been an advocate for the counseling profession and has greatly increased counseling services at Lindeman… in order to ultimately impact student learning. The leadership model used at Lindeman is one that Mrs. Gabbard has collaborated with the school counselors and instructional coach to create and implement. The counselors support the students, the instructional coach supports the teachers, and Mrs. Gabbard supports everyone.”
With Mrs. Gabbard’s support, the staff at Lindeman works toward breaking down social, emotional, academic, and career barriers in order for students to be able to learn. Her leadership enables school counselors to support and help children, ensuring more than 80 percent of the school counselors’ time is spent directly with students.
As a result, the school counselors have been successful in working toward closing achievement gaps.
“Mrs. Gabbard is an exceptional leader who does a wonderful job of empowering children, parents, and staff members to authentically collaborate and develop actionable strategies, solutions, and programs to ensure the success of all students,” said Dr. Kathy Burkhardt, superintendent of Erlanger-Elsmere Schools.
“Mrs. Gabbard is dedicated, passionate, and persistent and views every challenge as an opportunity in which to improve the services we provide to our children and families. We are so very proud of Mrs. Gabbard and Lindeman Elementary School. Recognizing Mrs. Gabbard as Principal of the Year is a well-deserved honor.”
Erlanger-Elsmere Independent School District serves students in Pre-K programs, four elementary schools, one middle school, one high school and one alternative school. The district has a culturally diverse population of about 2,400 students in a community of approximately 20,000 people in Northern Kentucky. Learn more at: www.erlanger.kyschools.us/
