Anne Marie Covey

Washington Elementary School
Sweetwater School District #2
Green River, Wyoming
annemarie.covey@swcsd2.org

Anne Marie Covey has spent the last 13 years of her 17-year career as a principal at Washington Elementary School, where she leads with a deep commitment to authentic relationships, professional collaboration, and educating the whole child. Shortly after she took leadership at Washington, she learned that the district’s program for children with social and emotional disabilities would be relocated to the school, and she immediately set out to build a program that would remove the stigma often associated with such disabilities. The program she built, named BEST (Behavioral Expectations and Skills Training), offers an inclusive and systematic structure of support for Washington students, many of whom are low-income and experience depression or anxiety. BEST has become a model program in the state of Wyoming for its whole-child approach, and the school frequently hosts other districts to observe the program in action and receive coaching on how to implement similar initiatives in their communities. The program’s emphasis on the social and emotional foundations of learning has translated to consistent academic gains; impressively, the school experienced some of its greatest growth on its spring 2021 WY-TOPP assessments despite pandemic-related disruptions to instruction. Covey holds a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary and Middle School Education from the University of Northern Colorado, a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Lesley University, and a Principal Endorsement from Denver University.

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