Katherine Nowak views herself as the lead learner at Hayes Intermediate School, where she has served as the sole administrator for the past three years. In that time, Nowak has spearheaded initiatives that have improved student performance and the school culture at Hayes. ‘Husky Strong’ has become the mantra defining the school community under her leadership, allowing for more positive student recognition and a decline in disciplinary problems. Nowak has helped to close the achievement gap and improve student performance by creating a “success period,” allowing for need-based interventions and extensions with flexible grouping of students between teams, grade levels, and even across grades. By creating teacher-based teams, Hayes has made meaningful strides using common short-cycle assessments to analyze student data, set common learning targets, and implement differentiated research-based instructional strategies for increased achievement scores and gap closure for at-risk subgroups. One Husky parent comments, “Selfishly, I wish that Mrs. Nowak could move from grade to grade and school to school with my children as they grow and progress through their academic lives.” She serves as a member of the Administrators Association Executive Board, the District Leadership Team, District RTI team, and District LPDC team and holds a Bachelor’s of Education and a Master of Education from Bowling Green State University as well as a Master of Administration from the Ohio State University.