On May 5th, the USD 379 school board announced the approval of Rachael Roberts as the principal of Garfield Elementary for the 2024-2025 school year. Roberts has taught for 10 years, three at Garfield in the fifth grade.
A CCCHS alum, Roberts (formerly Mayo), graduated from Washburn University in 2015 with her bachelor’s degree in elementary education, with an emphasis in 5th through 8th grade English. She received her administration degree from Fort Hays State in 2020, which she completed online while teaching full time in Topeka.
She taught in the Perry-Lecompton school district for seven years, 5th and then 7th grades. Her husband, David, teaches chemistry and physics at CCCHS. The pair moved to Rachael’s hometown of Clay Center in 2022 when they both accepted jobs with USD 379.
“It felt like diving timing that two positions opened the same week – one for each of us,” she said. “It just made a whole lot of sense for us to move then; it’s by far the best decision we’ve made as adults.”
The pair have Levi, who is finishing his first-grade year, Micah, who is almost 4, and will soon have a daughter.
Though she has fallen in love with education in the past decade-plus, Rachael said it wasn’t always in her career sights.
“Meeting David and seeing how he enjoyed his job and how he gets a lot of fulfilment out of it really inspired me,” she said. “I got into it and really liked it.”
In addition, she said middle grades have been her passion since she began college.
“I’ve always liked the middle grades,” she said. “I like fourth and fifth grade because they are still very sweet and kind and want to please their teachers and do well in school. But they are also creating a personality and have that funny sense of humor that’s super quirky and fun. There’s just something special about that.”
In addition to serving as Garfield’s principal, she will be the building librarian, a role that is also special to her with middle grade literature.
Since obtaining her administration degree, Rachael said she’s been working in the background to learn more about the district and how it works behind the scenes, including serving on several committees. That includes the District Leadership Team, Building Leadership Team, KESA (Kansas Education Systems Accreditation), the crisis team, and the Recruitment and Retention team.
“It’s a lot of background knowledge of what goes on in the district,” he said. “I knew I wanted to use my admin degree, so I wanted to be prepared and give myself more information so I would be able to step into that role.”
She will transfer into the principal position in July.
“I’m just excited, but I think it’ll be a good transition. I look forward to continuing what I’m already doing,” she said. “There’s a level of pride, already being at the school. I think there will definitely be challenges, but having a foundational understanding of who we are as a building will help ease that.”
