(Radio Iowa) – The elementary school principal for Woodbine in western Iowa was surprised with the national Milken Educator Award Thursday for her teacher mentoring efforts. Jill Ridder says her leadership team and teachers also deserve credit for implementing the personalized learning program that challenges students to move forward. “And I feel like that work has kind of work is different and started to become noticeable around the state and our surrounding communities, and people were starting to ask questions about how it was possible,” she says. Ridder says the approach looks at the broader picture with real data of what was happening in the classrooms.

“We moved from, you know, how we felt students were doing the, cardiac data, to actual, tangible data that we can look at and analyze and then put research based strategies in place to progress our students forward,” Ridder says. She says they kept working and changing the last several years to find the best way to help students. “We had failures along the way that we had to pick ourselves back up and make changes mid year. But we did that all together with always a student centered focus. And I believe that has led us to the results that we are seeing at our elementary at this time,” she says. More than 75 percent of elementary students in Woodbine are performing at least a year above grade level in reading or math.

Ridder started as a special education teacher and taught kindergarten, second and fifth grade before becoming an administrator six years ago. She says her passion is teaching, so she didn’t want to just sit behind a desk after becoming principal. “I have been in other schools where leaders are very, you know, successful in doing that managerial side of things. But I am very passionate about instruction as well and I want to be able to not only grow our students but grow our teachers because I know that we cannot grow our students without great staff,” Ridder says. Ridder says she felt being at all the meetings and working through the issues with everyone was the best way to lead.

“People have asked are you ever going to step out and kind of let the teachers do it? My teachers could absolutely do it on their own, they are great and they have learned a lot over the last few years, bBut I feel like my visible leadership is very important and that is how I know my school in and out. And so I continue to be highly involved in that,” she says. Ridder was told the school was being honored for improved test scores, and says she was very surprised and excited to learn she had won the award.

The award comes with a 25-thousand dollar prize. Ridder says she hasn’t had time yet to decide how she will use that money.