Butterfield principal honored as outstanding doctoral student of 2010

Butterfield Elementary School principal Ember Conley is the recipient of the Outstanding Doctoral Student Award for 2010 from the Arizona School Administrators (ASA) Higher Education Division.

Conley was born in Utah and moved to Colorado at the age of six; she graduated from Dolores High School in Dolores, Colo. After her graduation from the ASU College of Engineering and Applied Sciences with a bachelor’s degree, she returned, six years later, to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., to earn her elementary education teaching certification.

In the Cortez-Montezuma, Colo., area Conley taught math to middle school students, was a lead assistant principal, as well as a high school principal for three and a half years while earning a masters degree from the University of Colorado. 

Relocating to Maricopa, where her parents have had business interests since 1988, she is currently working on her doctorate in curriculum and instruction and will complete her dissertation in the next few months.

She and her husband, Rick, have a 12-year-old daughter, an 18-month-old son, an “old fat cat” and two dogs.

Conley’s dissertation was based on the following research questions:
 
· Can instruction focused upon Native American students’ cultural learning styles increase reading ability, as measured using the AIMS standardized testing?

· Will collaborative, participatory action research decrease the achievement gap when measured between the Native American and other minority elementary students in grades K-5?
 
“Final information will be known by June 2010,” according to Conley. “From preliminary findings and discussions with participating administrators, teachers, parents and community leaders, students have shown a substantial improvement in their excitement over reading and participating in culturally specific activities.” Professionals, who have been measuring change and supplying weekly journals to her, suggest an increase should be found once the objective test results are released by the state this month, she said.

As the 2010 outstanding doctoral student, Conley will be presenting her research in Tucson at the June ASA conference.

Staff photo