W’burg Superintendent addresses Kiwanis Club

As part of his training for his first year as a new superintendent, Williamsburg Superintendent Tim Melton had to come up with a phrase or statement about what he was looking for from this school year, and after much thought he came up with a phrase that he feels sums it up pretty well.

Williamsburg Superintendent Tim Melton recently addressed the Williamsburg Kiwanis Club about various programs happening at his school.

“The one part I didn’t want to do is take excellence out of it, because I think excellence has always been at Williamsburg city school. What I have told the staff this year is let’s strive for excellence daily,” Melton noted.

“If you go to the front of our school you will see ‘excellence is a way of life,’ but I wanted to put a little action in that for the staff so they would understand that is something we are going to do daily.”

Melton was the keynote speaker at the Williamsburg Kiwanis Club meeting on Oct. 10, which was held at the Williamsburg Tourism and Convention Center.

“The part about Williamsburg that is so great is Williamsburg is not contained in the walls that are the school up on the hill there,” Melton said. “One of the words that comes up all the time – I heard it this morning from a former teacher who walked through – is excellence. The tradition and excellence that runs through the school starts out with the partnerships that Williamsburg City School has embedded in the community.”

Williamsburg currently has 862 students enrolled in kindergarten through 12^th grade.

In addition, the school district also has a five-star preschool program that is full and at capacity, Melton added.

Williamsburg schools have a handful of commitments that school leaders try to always keep in mind.

The first is a commitment to school safety.

“You can never say it is never going to happen at Williamsburg City School,” Melton said adding that you never know what could come off the interstate among other things.

The second is a commitment to transition readiness.

“We are very fortunately and blessed is to have a university right across the road from us. We take advantage of that. What we are also very fortunate and blessed to have is an area technology center that is up the road in Corbin, and has a principal there that believes there should be just as many Williamsburg students there as there are Whitley County students and Corbin students,” Melton said.

The third is a commitment to personalized learning.

“One of the things we strive for is that every student learns at the level they are at. The on time support deals with that so that as students go through we make sure they have needs that are met,” he said.

Melton added he is proud that the school has put in a STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) lab this year for the middle school, and the goal is to work it down into the elementary school too. The school has also started a “Girls for Coding” program.