Marquette High School Principal Stephen Hankins said he is ready to serve more students in the Rockwood School District.
The 49-year-old Lake St. Louis resident has been named the district’s assistant superintendent of student services.
“My goal is to provide service to our community and students,” Hankins said. “Hopefully, I will provide them with the things they need to be successful at their schools. I just want to serve our community the best I can. That is what I will do every day I wake up.”
Board of Education members voted 6-0 March 2 in a closed meeting to promote Hankins to the assistant superintendent role. Board member Randy Miller was not at the closed session.
Hankins will be paid a salary of $177,329.28 as an assistant superintendent next school year after being paid $164,443.41 as a principal this school year.
“Steve is very successfully leading a very large and complex high school and community at Marquette High School,” Superintendent Curtis Cain said. “He has experience and a skill set in terms of working with different touch points. I think those attributes are really important when considering what is going to be needed to be successful as the assistant superintendent for student services in the Rockwood School District.
“This is a very broad and connected set of departments that Dr. Hankins will have responsibility for. It is a gathering of departments that help our staff, students and families continue to thrive by connections and belonging at Rockwood.”
Difficult position
Hankins will replace Terry Harris, who resigned as executive director of student services in January.
Harris, who graduated from Lafayette High School in 2000, had worked for the district since 2006 and was being paid $168,845.53 this school year.
In his resignation letter, Harris described his last three years as difficult. He wrote, “I am resigning so that I can feel safe in my body and in my workplace – mentally and emotionally. I am resigning in order to return to feeling valued as one of the region’s most innovative, student-centered educators.”
There has been tension at Rockwood since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020. A segment of parents pushed back on protocols the district put in place to stem the spread of the virus and then turned their focus to what materials were available in school libraries, how curriculum was being developed in schools and services the district provides internally and through outside vendors to students.
Before leaving, Harris had expressed displeasure following an October board decision to not renew contracts for three student services that focused on helping minority students.
Hankins said he believes some of the tension can be eased by focusing on what students need and listening to community members with the end goal of having a district where everyone feels like they belong.
“I know there will be tension at times, but I think we can come from the perspective that all parents love their kids and want what is best for their kids and the same is true for our administrators and teachers. We want what is best for all kids,” he said. “I think keeping in the forefront that we are here for our students and let’s find a way that everyone feels they belong is important.”
Cain said Hankins’ experience of guiding Marquette High, which has more than 2,200 students, will help him in his role of overseeing student services for Rockwood’s more than 20,000 students.
“I think it is important that we never lose sight of what our North Star is in the district, and that goes back to our mission statement in terms of meeting the needs of all students in the Rockwood School District,” Cain said. “I think we need both tact and touch in order to do that. I think we also have to understand there is almost this endless kind of horizon of what needs are continuing to define themselves, and our responses have to do more over time to meet the changing students’ needs that we are in fact seeing. I think he understands that.”
Hankins said because Rockwood is so large, the way the district handles student services does not always look the same at each school. He said part of his job is making sure every student receives the services he or she needs.
“It is a huge district,” he said. “Different buildings have different needs, and different areas have different needs. A lot of it will be speaking with community members, principals, students in the buildings to find out what is going on. The ability to see the bigger picture comes over time after collecting information.”
Cain said Rockwood must be clear about what it is doing and why it is doing it when it comes to meeting students’ needs.
“If there are folks that feel as though, ‘I don’t think this fits the necessary needs of my students, and I’m looking for something else,’ I think we need to provide that opportunity and flexibility for families,” he said. “When we say all students at Rockwood, we mean all students at Rockwood. I think it is going to take a varied set of responses and approaches, programs and personnel and mindsets in order to meet that particular goal.”
Doing more
Hankins’ educational career has mainly been at the high school level.
He has been Marquette High’s principal since 2019 and served as the school’s associate principal for the four previous school years. He also was an assistant principal at Marquette High from 2004 through 2010 and at Fort Zumwalt School District’s South High from 2010 to 2015.
Hankins was named High School Principal of the Year in 2021-2022 by the St. Louis Association of Secondary School Principals.
He also has more than seven years of experience teaching history, geography, sociology and psychology classes, and he worked for a semester as a paraprofessional. During his teaching tenure, he also served as an assistant football and track coach.
Hankins said he has taught at the middle school level, and because his wife, Melissa Hankins, is an elementary school teacher, he believes he has gained insight about the needs of elementary schools.
“The biggest thing is I have a lot of respect for elementary and middle school teachers,” Hankins said. “It is a whole different animal. I do think you have to have your heart for that age group. It is keeping in mind what they do is incredible work. I hope they know I have 100 percent respect for what they do and that I am there to support them.
“I am really excited to visit elementary and middle school buildings. It is a different climate and different educational experience that I am looking forward to getting to know better.”
Cain said Hankins’ experience with high school students means he understands how students nearing the end of their Rockwood experience were shaped by experiences in elementary and middle schools.
“He has an awareness of the importance of early identifications of programs, needs and strengths and weaknesses of the district,” Cain said. “What counts is he has an awareness, and he is not doing this work by himself. This is a full-fledged department or division within the school district. We are very fortunate to have a staff that is highly skilled and highly experienced in what they are doing. Steve knows how to work with teams, develop and build teams and ultimately support them.”