Meet Principal Sarah Treviño-Terronez
Principal Treviño-Terronez began her principalship at Funston Elementary School in 2021, bringing with her a leadership style rooted in empathy, collaboration, and reflection. Inspired by her mother’s strength and compassion, Treviño-Terronez leads with the belief that students and staff alike thrive in environments built on trust, transparency, and collective growth. From day one, Sarah prioritized building meaningful relationships within her school community. This involved facilitating one-on-one meetings with staff, roundtable discussions with students, and listening sessions with parents of disabled students.
Principal Sarah Treviño-Terronez of Funston Elementary School, 2025
Listening First
Sarah made it a priority to listen before leading. She understood that positive change must be rooted in the lived experiences of those closest to teaching and learning. She hosted voluntary one-on-one conversations with staff, offering dedicated time during the school day to hear directly from educators about what was working and where they saw room for growth. These meetings helped build trust and revealed a school culture where staff deeply cared about students but often felt isolated or hesitant to share practices.
Sarah also facilitated student roundtables, particularly with middle schoolers, where a recurring theme emerged: Students felt misunderstood, unwanted, and labeled as “bad.” Recognizing the urgency of this issue, she began exploring ways to elevate student voice and agency. In parallel, she engaged parents of students with disabilities, many of whom had experienced challenges with inclusion and communication. Their feedback pointed to a desire for stronger partnerships and more consistent opportunities to get involved with Funston.
Implementation & Impact
All of this input and a focus on rebuilding trust in the school led to several key shifts in culture and practice. By her second year, Sarah formally launched Funston’s Student Council, giving middle school students a platform to express their needs and shape school life. With staff support, students delivered campaign speeches, created posters, and held elections, marking the school’s first formal effort to embed student voice in decision-making.
At the same time, Sarah worked with her leadership team to revamp internal communication and teacher collaboration. She introduced a weekly newsletter co-authored by team members, hosted open staff office hours, and led a restructuring of the instructional leadership team. By inviting teachers to record model lessons, lead peer professional development, and share effective strategies, Funston moved from a culture of guarded classrooms to one of peer-driven growth.
Funston also adopted small-group instruction informed by real-time data, alongside schoolwide use of the Rigor Walk tool, a classroom observation protocol designed to assess the level of cognitive demand and instructional rigor in teaching and learning. These efforts, combined with a renewed focus on social-emotional learning, resulted in a significant decline in student behavior incidents.
To deepen family partnerships, Sarah launched monthly Coffee Talks, reinstated parent volunteer programs through the Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) and used the Remind app to keep families informed and connected. Students and families also led and participated in school events, including fundraisers, spirit weeks, and cultural celebrations.
Sarah’s long-term goal is to continue cultivating a schoolwide culture of distributed leadership, where staff, students, and families all play an active role in shaping the Funston community.
Apply This Learning
1. Create space for students to lead and be heard.
Principal Treviño-Terronez launched a Student Council to increase student voice and foster leadership. The initiative began with student-led campaigns, speeches, and elections. Student Council representatives meet twice per quarter with the principal and school leaders to propose ideas, raise concerns, and collaborate on school initiatives like spirit weeks, dances, and fundraisers. Middle school students organize events, including a Día de los Muertos dance and candy sales, to build school spirit and fund class trips. These efforts provide students with real-world planning experience and increase engagement.
2. Use consistent structures to promote collaboration.
To build staff trust and coherence, Principal Treviño-Terronez implemented a weekly schoolwide newsletter co-authored by members of the leadership team. The newsletter includes schedules, updates, and instructional priorities, and is released every Sunday evening to help staff prepare for the week ahead. Each team leader contributes a section, modeling distributive leadership and supporting work-life balance.
3. Communicate clearly and often with families.
Sarah reinstated partnerships with LSNA to rebuild trust post-COVID and bring parent volunteers back into the building. She also launched monthly Coffee Talks, where she invites families to discuss school initiatives and share feedback. Sarah also encourages teachers to send monthly newsletters to parents and caregivers, and the school uses the Remind app and a monthly calendar to keep families informed and engaged.