Superintendent finalist Latanya Daniels outlines 100-day transition plan focusing on instruction, equity and community outreach

Dr. Latanya Daniels, a finalist for superintendent of Burnsville‑Eagan‑Savage School District (ISD 191), presented a draft 100‑day transition plan to the school board and answered questions about challenges she expects and how she would address them.

Daniels told the board she organized the plan around five priority areas — teaching and learning; climate and culture; operations and management; collaborative and inclusive leadership; and community partnerships and engagement — and that each priority would follow a four‑step process: listen, learn, discern and act. "I have prepared a draft 100 day transition plan to share with you all this evening. It is in draft form because if selected to be the superintendent of District 191, of course, I would like to vet it with the board and get your perspectives and voice around the plan before I finalize it and enact it," she said.

The plan places instruction first. Daniels said she would meet district departments that touch instruction (equity, multilingual learner, special education), hold listening sessions with students, parents, teachers and principals, and visit summer programming sites where she noted the district typically engages about 2,000 students. She said she would "disaggregate the achievement data by demographic area over the last five years," review professional development plans and examine the district's pathways model and academic priorities. "I want to meet with each individual principal to discuss their achievement data, again, to celebrate with them what is going well and to also discuss opportunities for improvement," Daniels said.

On climate and culture, Daniels emphasized that behavior and school climate affect learning. She told the board she would meet student support and behavior staff, review annual survey and school climate data and examine disparities in discipline. "I know that students of color are disproportionately [represented in] behavior data. That is not unique to District 191," she said, adding the goal of building collaborative relationships with the teachers union to plan for a "healthy, safe and supportive learning and work environment." Daniels said she would seek patterns of practice and gaps between program implementation and outcomes and then coalesce district‑level and building leadership to address disruptive behavior.

Daniels described operations and management as the district's "spine." She said she would review the facilities plan, the district budget and staffing levels, and identify revenue sources and communication protocols for emergencies and weather decisions. She told the board she would "work with the facilities team and the board to understand the next steps in the facilities planning work, and plan a transparent budgeting process that centers our students." Daniels said she would pursue filling vacant positions before the school year and roll out a framework for leader accountability.

On leadership and board relations, Daniels said she would meet with the board chair — identified in the session as Director Werb — and with each board member to learn expectations and preferred communication. "I would like to review the board's expectations of me," she said, and to "develop an appropriate cadence for communication with you all to keep you apprised of what's going on in the district." She asked the board for partnership, constructive feedback, historical context and time to balance urgency and implementation.

Daniels also described community engagement work. She noted the district reported more than 200 community partners and said she would meet civic and political leaders, parent advisory groups and local legislators to strengthen relationships and "celebrate the strengths and also acknowledge opportunities to grow." On facilities funding, Daniels described experience with "say‑yes" referendum campaigns in her previous district, including outreach through phone banks, teacher and community volunteers and clear messaging on the "why" for voters. She cited past increases in operating referendum revenue at her prior district from about $400 per pupil to roughly $2,200 (adjusted for inflation) as experience that would inform any future campaign.

Daniels addressed enrollment, saying districts must court new families and remove barriers causing attrition. She described a pattern she addressed in a past school where about 60–70 students dropped from ninth to tenth grade because ninth graders were failing; she tied retention to instructional supports and progress monitoring. On recruitment and retention, she said Gen Z candidates value purpose, diversity, work‑life balance and mental well‑being; she recommended expanding grow‑your‑own programs, leveraging college/university partnerships and providing prebuilt, standards‑aligned curriculum and assessments to reduce teacher workload.

On student mental health and behavioral supports, Daniels recommended building staff capacity and using trauma‑informed, brain‑based approaches (she referenced conscious discipline) so that adult regulation and relationships reduce student stress without relying solely on new hires. "Self regulation helps with student regulation," she said, adding that staff must feel psychologically and physically safe and cared for to support students effectively.

Daniels used concrete examples from her prior work on equity and access. She said at Richfield High School she observed that the school was majority students of color while advanced courses were disproportionately white; she changed registration and outreach practices, used multiple measures to identify students for advanced coursework and ran a marketing campaign that increased college credits awarded (from about 600 to over 2,000 in her account) and expanded representation in honors classes to roughly 65–70 percent.

She concluded by asking the board for a collaborative relationship and constructive feedback, and reiterated a human‑centered leadership approach: "I see you as a human first, then I see who you are in your role."