Innovation drives vision for principal
Stephanie Amaya, principal of W.H. Adamson High School, said she was shocked when her name was announced as the Secondary Principal of the Year at this year’s State of the District.
“I was honestly surprised,” she said. “I think we have so many great educators in our district, so many principals who deserve this award. We have great leadership in our district where people really care about our kids and will do everything to make sure their schools are successful. All our principals are really deserving.”
Amaya, who was recently named executive director over the Moisés E. Molina vertical team, has devoted her career to turning around schools and creating academic opportunities for students with little access to them. As W.H. Adamson’s principal, she achieved the #1 School Effectiveness Index in Dallas ISD, boosted P-Tech associate degrees from 19 in 2021 to 74 in 2024, secured a CCMR rate of 86%, and doubled Advanced Placement passing scores.
Her dedication to helping the most disadvantaged in the community was fueled by her parents’s example. In the ’80s, as the Salvadoran civil war raged, Amaya’s parents fled to the United States.Her father risked his life to get all his siblings safely out of the country, she said. Once here, the family lived in a household of 11 people, whom Amaya’s father supported through his work in construction and masonry while her mother cared for them.
“My dad was always working out of town, and so my mom took care of everyone. She was also very involved in our schools,” Amaya said.
She attended several district schools and graduated from the School of Science and Engineering at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center before studying bilingual education at the University of North Texas.
After college, Amaya began her career as a teacher in kindergarten at Stevens Park Elementary School where she was asked to join a five-person turn-around team, a move that would set a path for her career in Dallas ISD.
“From the work that we did at Stevens Park, I was offered a position as part of a strategic staffing initiative to go to Boude Storey Middle School,” Amaya said. From there, she went to South Oak Cliff High School where she worked to boost graduation rates.
In 2014, she became an assistant principal at Arthur Kramer Elementary School, where she was part of the founding team that made Kramer the district’s first International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme school.
“That was exciting, and it was a great opportunity. In my first year at Kramer, with Principal Katie Eska, we accomplished six state distinctions for elementary schools. We worked with some phenomenal and innovative educators,” she said.
Innovation drives Amaya’s vision. Where she has gone, she has introduced initiatives that enhance the learning experience for students. In addition to earning IB status and six distinctions, Kramer, Amaya said, was the first school in the district to pilot Social and Emotional Learning, to establish a paid-for Pre-K, and to create a SPED continuum for a Pre-K and Kinder collaborative.
“It was a great experience to be able to start all these different programs and see how they work,” she said. “We wanted to create and develop systems for all kids to learn.”
After spending two years at Kramer, Amaya pursued her principalship and went to Sylvia Mendez Crew Leadership Academy, formerly known as John Ireland Elementary. Within her first year at Sylvia Mendez, the school went from an F to a B rating.
“Our kids really deserved an experience of learning and growing. We really centered our work around the library. We had a school garden, which is now a community garden,” Amaya said. “We really pushed advocacy for our students and tried to connect them to real world issues and project-based learning.”
Thanks to the dedicated effort of its educators, and under Amaya’s leadership, Sylvia Mendez became the first expeditionary learning school in Texas. And though she wasn’t there to see it, Amaya laid the groundwork for the school’s first A rating three years later.
“I was around people who had a passion for our students and our community. Sylvia Mendez is a great school with such great values,” Amaya said.
Amaya then briefly served as the principal of John Neely Bryan Elementary School and led it through the challenges of a pandemic.
“That was a lot of fun and challenging, but again, I was able to really surround myself with amazing educators who provided our students with the emotional, cultural, and academic support that they needed in order to progress,” Amaya said.
For the past four years, Amaya has been principal at Adamson High School, where many of the teachers are alumni who pour themselves into their work and their communities, she said.
“We have a lot of our own teachers that bring their students here. That says a lot about the trust that there is among our teachers, the trust between teachers and leadership, and the trust that we have with the community,” Amaya said.
Amaya feels proud of the many accomplishments Adamson High School boasts including 18 robust programs, a principal of the year, a teacher finalist in the HEB Excellence in Education Award, a flagship store, a memorial garden, and growing appeal to international students.
“People are seeking us out,” Amaya explained. “We’ve had students come from Canada, Romania, Scotland. When our parents see the programs that we’re offering and what we’re doing, they’re like, ‘I moved into this neighborhood because of Adamson.’ That’s a great feeling.”
