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Principal Meeks leaves Cherry Valley Elementary School

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POLSON — Inside the door at Cherry Valley Elementary School there’s a star quilt made from cherry fabric and comfy distressed leather couches, the walls are covered with children’s art and it smells like lunch cooking. Children quietly pass in the hall, trying not to skip. 

It’s a warm and cheery place and Elaine Meeks and her staff have worked hard to foster that feeling. 

“This is a community school,” Elaine said. “Every family and every child needs to know it’s ‘my school.’”

She wants every family to know that their child is cared for and getting the best education possible.

“Our mission statement is ‘We cherish each child,’” she said. 

There’s deep meaning behind that, Elaine said. Cherry Value staff tries to manifest it and bring it to life in how they deliver instruction to the children. 

“The entry point for all students is kindergarten,” Superintendent Linda Reksten said. “Elaine and her staff have created a welcoming environment at Cherry Valley for incoming students. She has offered many different programs to meet the needs of young children incorporating native culture, art, music, and PE with reading and mathematics. ... She has built strong relationships with our native students and families as well as the Polson community. She also has steadily worked to improve Cherry Valley through a variety of fundraisers that provided the walking path, climbing, etc., providing a wealth of experiences for young children.” 

Now Elaine has decided retire after 36 years in the Polson School District. Elaine was hired as a special education teacher in 1978 and Tim, her husband, as an art teacher.

She said she wasn’t a person who had known from age 5 that she wanted to be a teacher. 

After she earned her bachelor’s degree in history of art at University of California-Berkeley, Elaine moved into elementary education at Humboldt State University. She fell in love with teaching when she student taught in kindergarten.

Elaine remembered thinking “this was the most amazing job anybody could ever have.” 

A child in her classroom was an elective mute — not speaking in social situations — and felt she didn’t have the knowledge to meet his needs. So she talked to a professor at California State University-Sacramento, and ended up with a full fellowship and earned her Masters in special education at California State University- Sacramento.

After coming to Polson and teaching special ed and also working as the special education coordinator for 11 years, she was recruited into administration by then Superintendent Bud Veis. She received her administrative credentials from the University of Montana and became principal at Cherry Valley in 1989. 

As for her leadership and her core values, Elaine said she’s been heavily influenced by her years involved in early childhood education and her grasp of development of kids as they come into the schools. 

One of the many things special education training and teaching did for Elaine was reiterating the fact that each child can learn, which carried over into her administrative style. 

“As an administrator, I’m what you’d call hands-off, hands-on leader,” Meeks said.

She sets very high expectations for herself and the teachers and makes sure those expectations are very clear. The other piece to success is providing resources and support for the teachers, for which she “worked, worked, worked.” 

Cherry Valley went from a culture of isolation to a culture of collaboration under Elaine’s administration, and she’s very proud of that achievement. 

Title 1 teacher Joyce Crosby has been at Cherry Valley for quite a few years.  Through all the pendulums that have swung in the education world, Elaine has maintained the focus for Cherry Valley, Crosby said.  

Elaine has always been committed to the importance of the arts. 

“It’s a critical part of our curriculum,” she said, although the arts are the first programs to be marginalized. 

“Personally I’m not necessarily in favor of having art specialists. Every teacher can be a wonderful teacher of art,” she said, adding that it leads back to expectations and resources and support for teachers.

Another achievement she’s proud of is the K-5 Indian Education for All pathway for instruction that she worked on with other teachers. 

Children at Cherry Valley spend 30 minutes every day reading. The staff wants to build a disposition towards reading into each child since overall literacy is the basis for learning; 

children should be able to read, write, speak and listen.

She also always tries to incorporate fun into what the children are doing and how they are learning — the “fun factor,” Elaine calls it.  

“For me personally, I feel very, very comfortable leaving Cherry Valley,” Elaine said. 

She’s leaving for personal reasons — family, grandchildren and also the fact that Tim retired four years ago. 

“I wanted to feel solid and comfortable with where Cherry Valley was when I stepped away,” Elaine said — and she does.

 

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