Poplar Bluff native Shelly Ridens has dedicated over two decades teaching in the middle school grade span, and now she will bring that knowledge set to the lower elementary level to help smooth the transition from the neighborhood school to a center.

Ridens, who spent the past three years as assistant principal at the Middle School, was hired by the Board of Education in January to succeed Dr. Amy Dill as principal of O’Neal Elementary School. Her former supervisor, Dr. Josh Teeter, called her a natural-born leader and said Ridens is not only data-driven, but “innovative and culturally-driven.”

“I realized early on when I took over the Middle School that Shelly… had an excellent knowledge of the intervention process, and quickly joined our laser-light focus on the things that mattered,” Teeter said. “She’s a great manager, but more importantly, a great leader. She studies and stays on top of the required reading that schools seeking to improve learning need.”

Before joining the administrative ranks after Teeter was promoted to principal, Ridens served as a reading interventionist at the Middle School for three years, following five years as a fifth grade teacher. Her career in Poplar Bluff began in 2007 at the former 5th & 6th Grade Center. After a couple of years, she transferred to Oak Grove Elementary to teach fourth grade.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Ridens accepted her first teaching job in a self-contained classroom at Advance, where she would work under Poplar Bluff Superintendent Dr. Aaron Cornman, who then served as elementary principal and special education director.

“I was going to college at Cape and thought I wanted to stay [in that area], but was ready to move home,” she reflected. “…I love Poplar Bluff, and truly believe in our district. It’s where I’m from and where my sister (Melanie) graduated five years before me.”

In 2005, Ridens earned her master’s in elementary administration from William Woods University in Fulton. She enjoyed school and wanted to be an educator since around the age of 12, she recalled, and “would do it all over again.” While she eventually set her goals on moving up the ranks, she noted that she did not want to do so until her daughter Jordyn, now a nursing student at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, was grown.

At O’Neal, Ridens said she plans to set expectations and common language through the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports program so she can focus on curriculum, a subject she has taught on the side at Three Rivers through the community college’s articulation agreement with Hannibal-LaGrange University.

“I feel like I can be more of an instructional leader on a smaller scale, with time to devote to our PLC (Professional Learning Community) process,” Ridens said. “I love curriculum, and am excited to be able to get a little more involved in that again.”

While educators are not responsible for society’s ills, “it is our job to come up with a solution to solve them,” Ridens said, repeating a notion she heard during the PLC At Work Institute this summer. As a hobby, Ridens enjoys working on crafts and plans to put her “whole heart into this building,” much like she set out to accomplish at the Middle School last summer, adding her own words of inspiration to murals on the hallways with her personal Cricut machine.

She is also a believer in the Capturing Kids’ Hearts relationship-building initiative that the district has subscribed to for over a decade. Under the professional development, O’Neal has been named a National Showcase School for six years in a row.

Back when she was a fifth grade teacher, Ridens explained, she was greeting each student at the door as part of the CKH protocol while talking to a neighboring colleague. After some time had passed, she noticed one of her students seemed down, so she checked in, only to discover the girl was upset that Ridens did not make eye contact with her as she entered the classroom. “It was one of those ‘aha’ moments that made me realize how important it is to acknowledge everyone,” she shared.

O’Neal houses the district’s special education program for lower elementary students, including SWIN, TRUST and FUN classrooms. At the Middle School, Ridens helped centralize and expand the intensive needs operation from one to four classrooms, she said. Ridens noted that O'Neal will also welcome JLynn Nance to the building this year to serve as assistant director of special services for intensive needs, bringing along a background from the nearby Shady Grove State School for the severely disabled.

For the past two years, Ridens has served as the district’s St. Jude Math-A-Thon coordinator, a fundraising effort that began at O’Neal in 1989 under past Principal Lorenzo Sandlin. Last school year, the district raised over $38,000 for the children’s research hospital, bringing the district’s grand total to nearly $1.25 million, reported Ridens. She said the philanthropy not only provides free care for children in need while advancing cancer research, but it teaches students empathy.

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Cutline: Shelly Ridens enters her 23rd year in public education as O’Neal principal, succeeding Dr. Amy Dill, who served over the elementary school for the past seven years.