Shelley A. Andres

Bonner School
Bonner School District #14
Bonner, Montana
sandres@bonner.k12.mt.us

As principal of Bonner School, Shelley Andres has built a track record of building a close-knit, family-like atmosphere that has led to strong recruitment, high retention, and growing academic success at this pre-K-8 school in a former logging community. With high poverty, high special education enrollment, and a significant transient population, Andres has taken a relational, communicative, and collaborative approach to shoring up staff leadership and student wellbeing. A skilled fundraiser, Andres has secured funding to strengthen the school’s early childhood and literacy foundations. In 2019, a $1.25 million grant helped launch a transitional kindergarten program and implement schoolwide professional development focused on reading literacy. This new pre-K classroom serves 30 4-year-olds, who have been shown to have an advantage over their peers in traditional kindergarten. Similarly, a statewide literacy grant allowed Andres to develop a new framework for literacy instruction at Bonner, which, after just one year of implementation, has yielded a 13-percent increase in students in Tier 1 and a 14-percent decrease in students in Tier 3. Andres takes great pride in growing the profession through networking and mentorship and is proud to have grown enrollment during her term as president of the Montana Association of Elementary and Middle School Principals. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education and a Master of Education in Leadership from the University of Montana, as well as a Literacy Coordinator credential from the University of California Riverside