West Clay Elementary School - Carmel, IN

West Clay Elementary is located in Carmel, Indiana, a northern suburb of Indianapolis. It is the eleventh elementary school in the Carmel Clay School system and opened in August 2006. The mission of West Clay Elementary, aligned with our district, is to provide opportunities for all students to realize their potential in an ever-changing world. By ensuring we are providing the best possible differentiated instruction, along with best practices to meet the needs of all students, West Clay has continued to see high achievement results based upon standardized testing while being named a Four Star School each year since its inception. Additionally, West Clay is fortunate to have a strong relationship with our community stakeholders. Our supportive parents value education and they play a very active role in the school. Collaborative and shared leadership is the underlying philosophy of the administrative team at West Clay. We have a cohort of teacher leaders in our building who serve in leadership roles, various school committee chairs, and an instructional coach. Not only do we all share the same overall vision of collaborative and shared leadership, within that, we cherish and encourage two beliefs. We believe in a growth mindset and that failure actually is an option. We believe that no matter how good you are, you can always get better. That growth mindset and constantly striving to improve through reflection and staff development, drives us in everything we do. Decisions are always made based on the question, "What is best for kids?"