Carbon School District Press Release
For Mika Salas, education has always been about the students, whether they were in the class she was teaching or in the school where she was a principal. And when she was selected three years ago to be Secondary Director in Carbon School District, she continually went to bat for them too.
Now, she has a whole district to be a champion for because on July 7, the Carbon Board of Education selected her to be the new superintendent of schools.
“Mika Salas has been with Carbon School District for more than 20 years,” said CSD Board President Jeff Richens. “She has always excelled at everything she has done. She loves the students, mentors those who are new and supports the veteran teachers. We are very excited to have her leading the district.”
She becomes only the second woman to hold the job in the almost 100-year history of the district, and she said she knows she has some big shoes to fill with the departure of Lance Hatch, who left the district last month to take the superintendent job in Iron County.
“Someone asked me if I am going to pick up the guitar and learn to sing,” she said jokingly referring to the fact Hatch often conducted teacher workshops with his musical ability on display. “That is not me. We’ll have to find someone else to do that part.”
What Salas is, however, is a product of Carbon County through and through, and a champion of students, no matter what their aims and goals are.
“I grew up here attending Sally Mauro Elementary, Helper Junior High and graduated from Carbon High School,” she stated. “I was born and raised here.”
She attended college at Utah State University in Logan and had planned to get a degree in drafting.
“I was a student of Beven Young at Carbon High and I just loved him,” she said. “His influence sent me into that field. While I was at Utah State (drafting was an associate degree program at the time), one of the professors told me that I should stay and get my bachelors degree and become part of the Industrial technology education program. So, I stayed and finished that out.”
After graduating, she began her teaching career in Davis School District where she remained for a year working in a junior high.
“I remember that first day. The kids came into my class and I had these papers I was handing out, and I thought to myself ‘Oh my gosh they think I am a real teacher,’” she said laughing.
That job made a big impression on her about how much kids need to be recognized, how teachers and staff needed to know who each of them were, and that their lives mattered. That experience has held true throughout her educational career.
For the next three years after getting married, she lived in Green River while working for the Southeastern Utah Educational Service Center as a technology trainer.
“I would come to Carbon District on Monday, spend Tuesdays in Emery County, then on Wednesdays I would be in the office here in Price, on Thursdays in Grand County and finally on Fridays I would spend the day in San Juan County. The training I did for teachers was after school, so you can imagine how popular I was in San Juan County, doing training on a Friday afternoon after school was out. Then, I had to drive home.”
She finally made it back to Carbon County and began teaching math at Helper Junior High. She spent eight years doing that and then moved on to be the math specialist for the district for three years, covering all schools K-12. It was during that time that she went back to school to get her masters degree in administration.
“To be honest, I was frustrated by some of what was going on in the district, but instead of complaining about it, I wanted to be part of the solution,” she stated.
Becoming part of the solution was created by the fact that as that third year ended, she had requested to get back into the classroom, but that changed when Tom Montoya announced his retirement as the long time principal at Helper. She applied for that job, was selected and at that point, she was able to affect the lives of all the kids in the school.
“That was as good as working in a classroom,” Salas said.” I loved that job and when I came to the district office as the Secondary Director, it took me about nine months to quit crying over leaving Helper.”
Now, she will lead an entire district of teachers, staff and students, and her thoughts about that define the reason the board picked her. Salas cares about each and every student in the district. She also wants to continue what has been developed over the last few years.
“Everything we do, the Carbon Growth Cycle, the reading initiative and all the other programs, are developed from solid research and I want that to continue because it has been successful,” Salas stated. “These are research-proven practices. Not something we dreamed up or something we bought from a vendor. It works because there is enough structure that every school in our district, even though they are all different from one another, can plug into that structure. However, it still allows flexibility to meet the needs of each of their students. The autonomy for each of the schools to serve their communities is important, and this allows for that while proven practices are being used on every campus.”
She pointed out that the reading growth in students in elementary schools, because of the leveled reading program, has been phenomenal. The thought of getting away from that is unthinkable after what has been achieved. The plan is to have all elementary students leave for middle school reading at or above grade level, because it “changes the trajectory for the kids,” she said.
“Can you imagine going through six hours of school a day without being able to read?” Salas asked. “It would be awful.”
Reading at the right level will always be the goal of the district she said and it will be done through the proper developmental methods.
“I don’t have all the answers, but I will promise that we will make all of our decisions through collaboration and we as administrators will follow the same process that we ask everyone else to do,” she said.
Salas also believes that middle school is the time when students can sort out what direction they want to head with their life and careers, a time to expand their horizons. Coming from a technical education background, she sees that if students can be exposed to different interests and aptitudes in those years, many can develop skills that will aide them as the come out of high school, using those abilities to get good jobs as they go on to get a higher education as well if they wish.
“I worked my way through college and if I had not had the drafting skills I had learned in high school, instead of making $7 per hour in the 1990s, I would have made minimum wage (at the time $3.25 per hour) and I would have not been able to do it,” she said. “We need to get the students thinking about what the possibilities are, what is out there for them.”
Salas said there is new career exploration software the district has purchased that helps students determine what they are good at and what their interests are. This can help direct them on the right path.
“We would like to take middle school students on field trips to businesses where they can see where their interests could lead,” she said. “They may find they want to pursue it even more or may say that it is not for them once they experience it.”
At the high school level, she wants to see the district continue the work they have done with USU Eastern as well as with the apprenticeships and intern programs that have been developed.
“We want students to complete pathways that lead to a career option for them,” she explained. “Even if that pathway is not forever, the skills they learn and have will always be useful. What I really want is for every student to graduate with choices in life. I don’t want any student to be stuck or to settle for something less than they could have had.”
Finally, Salas said that it is her goal that every student at the secondary school level be involved in something extra at school, not just taking classes. And, no one should be just that anonymous student who is forgotten by administration and staff.
“I want to see every student active in some group, club, sport or other entity that is something beyond just taking classes at the school,” said Salas. “A sense of belonging is so important to everyone. In addition, I think no matter the size of the school, we should be able to call each student by their name every day. They need to know that we notice when they are gone, that we care about where they are at, that we are thankful when they are there and that we want to help them overcome barriers they might face. Students should be recognized as individuals daily.”