The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
by Dawne Belloise
On Friday, June 6, at Pirate Park, Sally Hensley will watch students passing from elementary school into middle school for the last time as principal of the Crested Butte Elementary School as she prepares for her next phase of life – retirement. After 38 years of serving as teacher and principal in the Gunnison and Crested Butte school systems (just one school system, so should we say in the Gunnison and Crested Butte schools?) and helping the valley’s children grow into young adults, Principal Hensley is handing the reigns over to recently hired Mandy Sheets.
Sally knew from a very young age that she wanted to be a preschool teacher and enrolled at the prestigious Tufts University in Boston, Elliott Pearson School of Child Study. After graduating in 1987 with degree in child study, she packed up the car and drove out to Colorado to live in a ski town. She chose Crested Butte.
Sally volunteered at Stepping Stones and the old Crested Butte elementary school, where the town offices are now. Eventually, she became a teacher and the director of Stepping Stones and was there for 17 years. Afterward, in 2006, she became a teacher for the Gunnison Watershed schools and director of Lake Preschool. She was in the Gunnison schools for eight years. “I really loved it. It’s a different community than Crested Butte and I learned a lot by being a part of that community. It gave me a broader understanding from different perspectives and a wider range of people.”
During her time at Lake Preschool, Sally enrolled in an online master’s program at Regis, earning her MA in educational leadership and a principal’s license which entailed an internship running concurrent to her directorship at Lake. Sally became the principal of Gunnison Elementary School in 2011. From there she was hired as the elementary school principal at Crested Butte Community School in 2015. “My kids were both in high school at CBCS at the time, so it was fun to be closer to that and be on the same school calendar.”
She cites some of the biggest changes she’s witnessed throughout her years… “Certainly the buildings and the recent renovations are astonishing. The expansion has been transformative. The way the students are using these new spaces, the middle and high schools look like more like a college campus on the inside with cafe tables in nooks and crannies, all the lighting has been replaced with softer lighting. It’s more fluid and far less institutional. It’s a modern school approach with lots of interior windows so you’re seeing inside the classrooms.” Sally feels the school is set up to be more conducive to students learning together. She notes that the new turf field allows kids to play soccer all year round, “We’re also able to host games now because we can keep the turf field clear all year.”
From the time she began her career, Sally has witnessed much progress in the actual teaching process. “School is different now and because of the research in brain development, we’ve gotten more sophisticated and knowledgeable in developmental practices, which are different than what they used to be. So, our instructional practices have changed to keep up with how we know people learn best. There used to be a lot of rote memorization and we now know that there are better ways to take in content and learn from it and it can’t be passive.”
She recalls that in the past, you were told what you needed to know and were required to memorize it. “Now we know that kids need to talk about the content with one another in meaningful ways. It’s much more of an active discussion and less of a lecture. Kids are interacting with the content, using critical thinking and active learning. We’re much better at recognizing and addressing different learning styles and abilities with strategies that are specific to that. We can level the playing field a little more to accommodate neurodiversities by using strategies.”
Looking back…and ahead
Sally takes with her a lifetime of memories. “It’s been a long career. I love the work I’ve done and I’m super proud of the work I’ve done in the 38 years of running schools. I was with the CB elementary school in the first phase, working with our teachers to get the systems going,” she says.
But she also feels that it’s important to have new leadership in any organization. “New perspectives are really good and are really healthy.” Sally says she didn’t want to be one of those administrators or teachers who overstay their tenure. “I want to leave my position feeling really good about what I’ve done but also recognizing it’s someone else who can take the school and do amazing things. I’m like an old dog in a new game,” she smiles, and feels it’s time to let someone else with a new and fresh set of leadership eyes take the reins. “I’m really excited about the next principal, Mandy Sheets. She’s a highly experienced principal from the Cherry Creek School District who’s had a home in CB for the last 10 years. I think our schools are really going to benefit from her leadership.”
Sally recently returned from a three-day field trip, camping with 55 fifth graders and their teachers in Fruita in conjunction with the Keystone Science School. The annual event has been one of her favorites. “It was so much fun. The Keystone Science School instructors lead the kids through field studies where they learn about geology, wind, water erosion and rock cycles at the Colorado National Monument.”
Another highlight she’ll always carry with her is having watched students be successful out of the classroom. “When I sit at graduation and I watch these children, who we spend a lot of time on social and emotional learning and positive character traits, and although they’re not done, when we send them to sixth grade they’ve got the foundational pieces. They don’t always use them wisely because they’re still learning,” she laughs and adds warmly, “they’re still kind of squirrelly. Then I watch them cross the stage as young adults who are poised and confident and have developed into these remarkable young people who have so many opportunities ahead of them, and I just think it’s a highlight to watch somebody you’ve known since kindergarten carry on what we started in elementary. I think CBCS is really good at developing humans, at helping our students develop into remarkable, well-rounded human beings. I’m in awe of the process. I saw it in my own kids who went through the school system.” And she feels that although it’s hard to watch them go out into the world, for the most part, “These kids leave our school systems with the tools and fortitude to be successful in the world.”
Sally says she will miss many things about being involved on a daily basis with the school and its community, like her connection to the children and teachers. “I work with an astonishing group of people and I’m going to miss the other principals in this valley who are some of the best people I know. I’m really going to miss our current superintendent, Dr. Leslie Nichols. She’s led this district through some of the hardest years we’ve seen, from Covid and lawsuits concerning masks, and the funk that came after Covid. Dr. Nichols also led us through this exceptional school expansion project.”
Though retirement will be arriving in the coming weeks for Sally, she has no plans to be idle. “We’re getting a puppy! A chocolate lab who’s still with her mama and we’ll pick up in mid-June.” Another goal is to train as a Pilates instructor, an exercise she’s been doing for years. “I’ll also be spending time with my parents in Minnesota and visiting family. We’ve got some little trips planned. My community is here,” she says of Crested Butte and the Gunnison Valley. “It’s my haven. It’s not that I’m going to stop working, it’s that I’m going to take my foot off the gas a little bit.”
Sally’s retirement party will be held June 15 from 4 to 6 p.m.at Rainbow Park. Thank you, Principal Hensley, for all your years of dedication and work.
