Brittany R. Rhoades

Mountain View Middle School
Roswell Independent School District
Roswell, New Mexico
bgriffin@risd.k12.nm.us

For Brittany Rhoades, the key to effective school leadership is bringing community members together around a shared vision that centers student agency and achievement. At Mountain View Middle School, where she has served for the last six years of her decade-long career as principal, that shared vision is “the future is ours,” a mantra that emphasizes both individual and collective responsibility over student success. To bring this philosophy to life, Rhoades has implemented a variety of academic and SEL initiatives to activate student engagement. At the beginning of her tenure, the school adopted AVID’s WICOR strategies, which promote the cross-disciplinary integration of writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading. These skills are represented across content areas, earning Mountain View recognition as an “Emerging Schoolwide” AVID school and leading to a 20-percent increase in students’ self-reported engagement in classroom activities. The school is a second-time Disciplinary Literacy Model School and was named a Spotlight School by Teacher Created Materials for its effective support for ELL students, whose families are integrated into the school community with universal bilingual communications. Rhoades proudly mentors principals across the state as a Performance Coach for Thrive, an initiative of the New Mexico Priority School Bureau. She holds a M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Texas at Arlington and a B.Ed. in Elementary Education from Eastern New Mexico University.