Amanda Meier

Lewis and Clark Elementary School
Mandan Public Schools
Mandan, North Dakota
[email protected]

Nine years ago, Amanda Meier left the classroom to pursue her passion for mentorship and coaching as a full-time leader and school administrator. In the years since, Meier has mentored countless aspiring leaders, including 17 new principals, while boasting an impressive minimum annual staff retention rate of 94 percent, including five years free of any staff turnover. In her six years leading Lewis and Clark Elementary School, Meier has cultivated a thriving professional learning community steeped in distributive leadership while implementing transformative school culture initiatives. Early in her tenure, amid persistent behavior issues disruptive of teaching and learning, Meier set out to strengthen intra-school relationships and increase student and family engagement. She led a process to identify students in need of more positive adult relationships and launched a program to structure 1:1 relationship development, which has since grown to encompass broader commitments to trauma-informed teaching, restorative practices, and staff wellness. As a result of these efforts and other programs emphasizing positive parent engagement, the school no longer uses out-of-school suspensions and has phased out its reliance on the school resource officer. Meier was a 2014-15 Rodel Foundation of Arizona Aspiring Principal; she holds a B.A. in Elementary Education from Minot State University and an M.Ed. from Grand Canyon University and has completed a continuing education program in Superintendent Leadership at the University of Mary.