Our New Community School Director is Here!
"I'm really excited to get to work. I'm very social. I would say --very extroverted. I really enjoy having professional relationships, and I make friends everywhere I go."
Russ Elmore, Promise Heights’ new Community School Director
Russ Elmore looking towards Hidden Falls in Grand Teton National Park (2019)
Russ Elmore, Promise Heights' new Community School Director at Eutaw-Marshburn Elementary School moved from Saint Louis to Baltimore during a global pandemic and the July 2020 heat wave. Yet throughout this challenging transition, it seems that he maintained his cool. Russ is excited to start his new job while facing similar challenges that most educators face as most school districts across the nation will start with remote learning.
The Baltimore City Public School System waited until mid-July to announce plans for a remote start on of the academic year, so like countless professionals across the nation who are planning a unique launch, Russ will be strategizing with his team, while also starting a new job.
When we first spoke about his recent move, Russ was succinct about all that was happening in his life: “It’s stressful!”Yet he enthusiastically shared that, “I’ve been working from home at my last job since early March, and that job was literally focused on being in meetings and talking to clients on the phone doing telehealth. So, I got used to working from home, and being mobile, and having to do all that stuff remotely. But I’ve been at my last job for three years, so it’s nice to shake things up every once in a while.”
Even though Baltimore is a new city, Russ will be navigating familiar circumstances. “When I was growing up in Saint Louis, I was playing a lot of lacrosse where I went to a public school, so I’d go to all of the elite private boy’s schools, like Chaminade [one of St. Louis’ top-rated College Preparatory Boarding School] and Mary Institute & Saint Louis Country Day School.”
“Then later in graduate school l was in the Ferguson-Florissant area studying for my Master’s in Social Work at the University of Missouri-Columbia. That’s where Michael Brown was killed in 2014. I was doing research in the school classroom environment, collecting data, and also getting to know school systems. That was the first time I’d been in a middle school, working with principals and teachers in schools that are disproportionately underfunded—and also disproportionately—minority children attended those schools that were getting less public money. Our goal was to find how we can maximize the outcomes for these kids… you know, utilizing a mixture of mental health and conventional classroom intervention. Depending on where you are in the city, you see the extremes between wealth and poverty…the racial/wealth gap and how public funding is distributed—it’s so visual—It’s unbelievable.”
Clearly, Russ is well-aware of what to expect. “Baltimore…its population is about twice the size of St. Louis, but historically, it faces a lot of the same issues and strategies: similar racial issues, similar levels of poverty and social injustice. They’re analogous to one another. There are a lot of similarities between Baltimore and St. Louis.” Yet he noted other cities sharing more extreme grim realities and statistics: “Besides Minneapolis and Milwaukee, St. Louis is the most segregated city in the country…still.”
We’re thrilled that Russ will be here for the start of the school year. ”There's a lot of groundwork I'll have to do—not on the ground—but to build relationships and really introduce myself and just kind of get to know the building and the staff and the families. And of course, with everything being virtual that just adds a lot of different layers—a lot of different challenges. I think that’ll be my biggest challenge, but also my main goal–-to get to know the building and students and staff.”
Which brings us back to that photo, in that we discussed various things that bring Russ the greatest pride, and he shared about “times I've spent out in like national parks—backpacking in the Grand Canyon, exploring Lake Tahoe multiple times, and I spent a week in Grand Teton [National Park] last year. I was trying to do something very similar to that this year, and it didn’t work out. Before I left my last job, I was doing case management, which shifted to include some health services, and things were more hectic than usual. The pandemic has disrupted so much! We realized it wasn’t a good idea to make the trip this year. Spending time outside, doing a lot of backpacking. I love it! I don’t know if that’s the most interesting thing about me, especially because it’s something I kind of wear on my sleeve. I have like REI everything. I wear like hiking boots to work and stuff like that….”
So if during the coming months, you’re in Upton/Druid Heights and see a warm and enthusiastic guy charging around sporting REI hiking gear, a big smile, and the remnants of a hairstyle he recently described as “quarantine hair,” chances are, you are in for the treat of meeting Russ Elmore, Eutaw-Marshburn’s new self-described “extroverted” Community School Director.