Blanchard comes home to intermediate school
For Justin Blanchard, settling into his role of intermediate school principal has been a bit like coming home.
When Blanchard started as head softball coach and a middle school science teacher in the Siloam Springs School District 12 years ago, the middle school was located in the intermediate school building. Seven years ago, the middle school moved into the former high school building on Tulsa Street and Blanchard moved into administration as middle school assistant principal. Last spring, he was hired as intermediate school principal to replace Tim Hornbuckle, who moved to another district.
“I was fortunate enough to get to come back home and be the principal,” Blanchard said.
Blanchard grew up on the Texas side of Texarkana, and earned his undergraduate degree at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, where he met his wife, Allison Blanchard. He went on to earn a master’s degree in educational leadership from Harding University in 2011 and his specialist degree from Arkansas State University in 2018. Before coming to Siloam Springs, Blanchard worked in the Waldron and Hot Springs school districts
as a teacher, and softball and football coach.
Blanchard has a heart for working with middlelevel-age kids, in grades five through eight, he said.
“It’s a time when kids are figuring out who they are as learners,” he said. “They are starting to put the pieces together and learning is really exciting for this group of kids.”
Students who are in fifth and sixth grade are smaller but very similar in nature to seventh and eighth grade students, he said.
“What I’m seeing so far, is the fifth and sixth graders are excited to be here, they are excited to be at school and that is infectious, teachers feel that, administrators feel that and it makes for a really fun place to be,” Blanchard said.
Blanchard is moving into the role of principal during a challenging time, but the five months that schools were closed for in-person instruction because of the pandemic has helped him and other staff members appreciate seeing students face-to-face.
“This school year is different and we knew that coming in, but I said this a lot last week as the students returned to us, ‘The pandemic has forced us to really appreciate seeing students face to face’ and you can feel that,” he said. “Kids are thankful to be back with us, teachers are thankful to be with kids. It’s a sign that society is going to be okay and things are going to be fine. That has been a really enjoyable piece to coming back this year.”
Blanchard believes in teamwork and collaborative learning and decision making, so the school’s model of professional learning communities, or teacher teams, and student advisory groups is a good fit, he said.
Both teachers and students learn and grow when they work collaboratively with everyone bringing their different experiences and perspectives to the discussion, then coming to a consensus on a topic, and finally circling back around and reflecting on the effectiveness of their strategy when the project is complete, he said.
“I really feel we learn better when we are able to have that discourse between persons, whether that is teacher to teacher or student to student or teacher to student,” he said. “I feel like the conversation as you try to attack a problem or solve a problem is the most important thing.”
The district’s three goals of focusing on professional learning communities, response to intervention and science of reading, have shaped Blanchard’s goals for the intermediate school, he said. Because there are a lot of pieces already in place and functioning really well, Blanchard is focusing on the professional learning community, or teacher team, process and connecting people through teams so they can support students in a more effective way.
Middle learners are transitioning from childhood into adolescence, so advisory groups support students with social and emotional tools, he said. During their advisory period, students spend several days a week on social, emotional lessons as well as working on setting academic goals and playing together with the goal of creating a community and a family at school, he said. The groups also give students a chance to connect with an adult each day so they have someone to turn to to ask important questions, he said.
Outside of school, Blanchard enjoys spending time with his wife and their three children, who play a lot of sports, and serving the community. He and his wife also started playing tennis over the summer as a way to get more active, he said.
“At home, I am a family guy,” he said. “I love spending time with my family, they are my people. We try to serve as much as possible. My wife is an educator too, so school is more than just a job at my house, it really is a ministry for us. We are servants to kids, we are servants to our community through the lens of education, and that is a much broader purpose than just delivering instruction.