Superintendent

The Superintendent of the University of Texas-University Charter School (UT-UCS) serves as the central administrative officer for the district and is responsible for providing leadership in all aspects of the operations of the district. Gwyn A. Boyter, Ph.D., assumed the role of Superintendent of UT-UCS on January 8, 2008. She is the second superintendent in the history of UT-UCS.
	Dr. Gwyn Boyter, Superintendent

A Note From Dr. Gwyn Boyter, Superintendent

It is my pleasure to welcome you to a virtual visit and tour of the University of Texas-University Charter School (UT-UCS) via our website. I am very proud of the work that we do at UT-UCS and the services that we provide to our students. UT-UCS is a very specialized public charter school that serves students who are unable to access traditional public school opportunities because of residential treatment needs, crisis in their personal or family’s lives, or intense commitment to a specialized program outside of school. Not every child needs a school of choice in order to access excellent educational opportunity, but some children end up in circumstances that require a different type of educational opportunity if they are to be successful learners. UT-UCS provides that opportunity during a time when these children need a different type of educational opportunity.

At UT-UCS we strive to be a community of reflective practitioners. We evaluate ourselves and work to continuously improve who we are and what we do. While we believe in the state and federal accountability systems, we know that the success of our students is often not accurately reflected in the measurement tools utilized in those systems because of the mobility and educational history of our students. To measure ourselves, we are developing a value-added evaluation system that lets us determine student learning relative to growth indicators for each child. We seek reliable data that will let us inform our decisions and improve our work.

We believe that if we are providing excellent learning opportunities based on a rigorous curriculum and instruction designed to meet the needs of each individual student, then we will achieve growth in student learning. We will have added value to the student’s educational experience while he or she is with us.

The vision for UT-UCS is what we are striving to become. We are a work-in-progress and we will continue to improve in our efforts to change the lives of students, faculty and staff by becoming the best model of an educational system for students with specialized learning needs.

UT-UCS is a complex system and there are several cornerstones or pieces to our foundational structure. Each piece is key to achieving our vision, but we know that we must constantly evaluate and adjust in order to grow towards our vision. Each cornerstone must be implemented with fidelity which requires repeated renewal of our commitment and persistent honing of our skills.

Cornerstone 1: There is a culture of high expectations for all: students, faculty and staff. Each faculty and staff member must want to be excellent in the job that they do. They must also believe that they are capable of doing extraordinary work. Everyone who works for UT-UCS must believe that the students we serve can learn rigorous curriculum, regardless of their history, their educational and personal strengths and weaknesses, their educational gaps or disability.

Cornerstone 2: Faculty and staff will bring joy to the classroom and learning. What is more joyous than growing as a human being through learning? Too many of the students we serve have never or rarely experienced the pride of accomplishing a difficult learning task or the joy that comes with understanding something new and complex. Meaningful learning can be fun. One should never hear, “Finish your work and then you can do something fun.” The work of learning should be joyous and fun.

Cornerstone 3: No one will limit what a student wants to achieve by telling them they “can’t” do it. We will help them understand what it takes to achieve a particular goal, but we will never presume to tell them they are unable to achieve that goal. We will help them build a vision for their future based on understanding the work that they must do to achieve that vision, but we will never destroy a vision by telling them they “can’t”.

Cornerstone 4: Everyone owns their own learning. For students in grades eight through twelve, UT-UCS provides Academic Transition Coordinators (ATC’s) to work with each student in creating educational and career plans for high school and beyond. Students are expected to have a vision and to understand the goals that they must meet to achieve that vision. This understanding helps each student to own his or her learning; i.e., to be responsible for his or her learning. In addition, students are offered the opportunity to become advocates for themselves as they pursue their educational goals.
Faculty and staff are offered opportunities for professional development to enhance the work they do within the mission and vision of UT-UCS. Everyone is responsible for meeting the learning expectations of UT-UCS.

Cornerstone 5: Fidelity in what we do and how we do it. We implement best practices and research-based methodologies with fidelity.

Cornerstone 6: Every faculty and staff member of UT-UCS is trained in Capturing Kids’ Hearts® (CKH) which is based on building relationships with both students and coworkers. CKH is based on the EXCEL® model for leadership, teaching and relationship. Components of the model are Engage, X-plore, Communicate, Empower and Launch.

Cornerstone 7: UT-UCS utilizes CSCOPE®, a standards-based curriculum that is rigorous, relevant, and high-quality for the four core subject areas, Mathematics, Science, English Language Arts/Reading, and Social Studies. This curriculum is based on the curriculum content standards of the state of Texas. It is designed to assist teachers in providing lessons that promote critical thinking and problem solving within the content area. Technology is embedded into the curriculum.

Cornerstone 8: Instruction in UT-UCS is differentiated to meet individual learner needs and to guide students to understand the relevance of what they are learning. Teachers and staff are expected to appropriately utilize technology to provide current, relevant, effective instruction.

Cornerstone 9: The instructional model for UT-UCS specifically addresses the programmatic needs of the general education program, special programs for students who are at-risk of not graduating due to gaps in learning, and the special education program for any student with an identified disability that is impacting his or her ability to learn grade level curriculum.

Cornerstone 10: UT-UCS works toward the effective creation and use of data for decision-making (this includes student assessment).

Cornerstone 11: Resources are not infinite and UT-UCS has a budget planning, management, and evaluation system that focuses on insuring effective and efficient use of all resources. Technology is utilized to enhance the effective and efficient use of resources.

Cornerstone 12: All decisions must meet the standard of “yes” to the question, “Is this action the best decision for the student(s) to be served?” If the answer to the question is not “yes”, then more work needs to be done on the decision.
Again, welcome to UT-UCS. We are glad you came to visit.

About Dr. Boyter
Dr. Boyter has over thirty years of experience in public education and public service to individuals with disabilities. She has served as a teacher in K-12 education for three through twenty-one year old students. She has also taught at the university level, primarily doctoral courses, but also master and undergraduate level courses. Other positions in which she has served include superintendent, business manager, and curriculum director in districts with enrollments between 4,000 and 5,600 students. Her experience also includes Staff Services Director for a 1,600 employee residential facility, Project Director for the Regents’ Initiative for Excellence in Education at Texas A&M University-Commerce, interim assistant dean for the college of education and interim Associate Vice-President for Academic Affairs. She has received several honors and awards including service as a board member and president of the National School Development Council.

Dr. Boyter is a published researcher and author. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Administration, her Master of Education in Educational Administration, and her Bachelor of Science from The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Boyter is married to her high school sweetheart. They have two married sons. Their oldest son is a Captain in the US Army and the younger son is a Lieutenant in the US Air Force.

Staff in Superintendent Administration:

News

• September 26, 2011 New UT-UCS Website Launched