No job is too small for Mt. Spokane High School principal, awardee of state principal of the year: ‘When you work for her, you feel valued’

Vacuuming floors isn’t often something advertised in a school principal’s job description. It may not be the first task one associates with leading 1,491 students and 83 teachers at a school.

Still, when a frustrated teacher at Mt. Spokane High School complained to Principal Chelsea Gallagher about a messy classroom floor that was distracting to students, she knew what to do.

“I was like, ‘I can fix this. I know how to vacuum.’ So I grabbed a vacuum and vacuumed it,” Gallagher said.

Gallagher was crowned the state secondary principal of the year by the Association of Washington School Principals, recognized for her embodiment of servant leadership and centering student success.

No problem is too small for the head of school, whose guiding philosophy includes “servant leadership,” prioritizing her staff so that they can zero in on the kids.

“It’s about identifying what people’s legitimate needs are and getting to work to identify those needs,” Gallagher said. “Because if I can meet the needs of the people that I serve, then they can better meet the needs of our students, and then our students are going to perform better.”

It’s one of many lessons she’s learned through her approximate 20 years in education, working first as a high school English teacher in Las Vegas and landing back in her hometown of Spokane to accept the principal job at Mt. Spokane. She’s worked four years in her position as principal and “The Encourager,” she said.

“I just think it’s a pretty special place when the staff and students are willing to put forth so much effort and time in order to demonstrate mastery, whether it’s their learning in the classroom or it’s an extracurricular activity,” she said.

She beamed about her students’ successes, from Mt. Spokane’s marching band that’s one of the highest-ranked in the state to students’ oil pastel portraits hung in her school halls.

“They’re really talented,” she said while walking past a display.

While she recognizes it’s unreasonable for her to know in depth all the pupils in her school, of which there are nearly 1,500, she does what she can to make sure they all feel seen by a trusted adult on the staff she prides herself in having assembled.

To support them in that mission, it’s all in the “little moments,” she said. Maybe it’s asking staff about their own kids or how their new car is driving, touching base with teachers in her daily “morning walks” through her school.

“Whatever it is, just being genuinely interested in it,” she said. “And that’s not hard, because I care about these people. We work together every day, doing a crazy-hard job, and if we didn’t care about each other, it would be extremely difficult to meet the needs of the kids.”

It’s her palpable attention to her staff that make Gallagher an easy boss to work with, said Chris Snyder, a Mt. Spokane assistant principal of three years.

“When you work for her, you feel valued,” Snyder said, describing Gallagher’s follow-through on requests of staff and addressing issues in the school, actively listening in meetings with anyone who comes through her door.

“Whether it’s working with a student or one of our staff members or any employee here, just giving them your undivided attention when they come to you or when you’re working through something,” Snyder said. “I think that that’s an area where I’ve really wanted to get better at, and that is something that she does extremely well.”

The Association of Washington School Principals factors some data points in selecting the state principal of the year, in elementary and secondary school categories.

Mt. Spokane boasts a high graduation rate, compared to the state. Mt. Spokane graduates 90.3% of its students in four years, versus the state average rate of 82.8%.

Still, Snyder said Gallagher is never satisfied with the “status quo,” always finding ways to take Mt. Spokane’s victories a step further.

Eternally humble, Snyder said, Gallagher takes nearly each moment to highlight her staff and dedication to teamwork.

“I’m responsible for everything inside this building, everyone inside this building, everything around this building, and it’s a heaviness that I can’t fully describe,” she said. “The only way that I have found to deal with it and not let it eat me up is to surround myself with the best people possible.”