National Principals Month Spotlight: Daniel Fuller of Arnold Mill ES!
October is National Principals Month! Our Principals are Elevating the Excellence every day in our schools by providing leadership and inspiration. We’re recognizing one of these amazing leaders each day. Please join us in thanking them for all they do each day for our students and families, teachers and staff, and communities! #CCSDElevateTheExcellence #ThankAPrincipal
Arnold Mill ES Principal Daniel Fuller
Why did you choose to become a Principal?
I began my career in education as a substitute teacher at Teasley Middle School in 2001. From day one, I found that I truly enjoyed working with students and knew that I wanted to make a career in education. On one particular morning in 2002, I was subbing at Teasley and there was a bus accident at the bottom of the hill. I was very impressed with how the principal, Dwight Pullen, handled the situation, and it was at that moment that I set a goal to become a CCSD principal.
What inspires you in your work as a Principal?
The students! The reason I do what I do is for the students. Being able to impact the lives of young people is a calling for me. As an educational leader, being able to see positive impacts on students that are a result of my leadership is what drives me to succeed.
How are you Elevating the Excellence in your school?
At Arnold Mill, we are elevating the excellence by focusing on our key priorities for 2024-25. Those priorities include a schoolwide emphasis on teacher clarity and standards mastery. Every teacher at Arnold Mill has a standards mastery checklist, which lists each student and their current level of mastery for each standard. Grades 3-5 have trained on and are using Mastery Connect to track their standards acquisition. Our reworked PLCs (professional learning community teacher groups) are designed around deconstructing a priority standard and then creating quality and rigorous lesson plans to teach that standard. We are continuing our improvement initiatives in early literacy on grades K-2 based on the Science of Reading to include Heggerty, phonics and the use of decodable texts. And lastly, every student at Arnold Mill has a writing portfolio, which contain pre- and post-writing samples organized by language standards. These portfolios allow our teachers to provide targeted one-on-one writing instruction to every student.