GUERNSEY—Coming to Guernsey-Sunrise Schools in August of 2023, Superintendent Lisa Weigel says she approached her new position as a spectator: getting a feel for the school, the community, and the desire to define both the strengths and the weaknesses that were present.
Now nearly a year later, she is reflecting on what she observed and is more able to define what needs to be done to make improvements and grow the successes that she has seen.
“When I came last year, the priority was doing a lot of listening and developing relationships,” she said.
Even though Guernsey is a familiar place to her because she once was a G-S student in her elementary years, she acknowledges that times are much different now. “It was important to me to understand the needs and wants of the community, the students and the staff. We want to establish a positive culture that really supports the kids, is student-focused, and finds the strengths of the staff.” Weigel says she sees the staff has many strengths and she hopes to “grow a culture that supports those strengths and gives students a voice and be a part of improving their school.”
To that end, Principals Liesl Sisson and Jeremy Dietchman implemented a Student Advisory Committee which differs a bit from the student council format because students are invited to speak more directly about issues they see as important. Weigel said a perfect example occurred when students were asked about “safety hotspots” in the school. She noted that students brought up things that weren’t ever considered by the adults.
“It was amazing at what they came up with—things that affect them but nobody else noticed. For example, they mentioned that there may be a need for more supervision in the commons right after school due to the fact that many of the elementary students are coming through that area to exit the building,” Weigel explained.

The superintendent said she also credits the board for their attention given to the overall safety in the school. Weigel says they started out with just a shared safety officer but quickly realized the need was enough to justify a full-time officer position if they could get the finances to cover the cost. The funding was secured, and Guernsey-Sunrise now has a full-time school resource officer. Weigel says that was a “huge asset” as Officer Christina Mangan was assigned to the district.
School safety has become an integral part of any school’s agenda and Weigel says Guernsey-Sunrise is working hard to be sure the security of the school premises is maintained at all times. “Are we making sure all our doors are locked? Are we watching our parking lots?” Weigel said they ran a mock live-shooter drill this past spring to assess the readiness.
Weigel said quality learning and quality teaching is an important area she wants to press. More collaboration – and again, listening to student voices – are also areas of focus. The school has added some internal internships and established a way for students to obtain a CDL license and Certified Nursing Assistant certification. This year’s results were outstanding as 15 seniors signed letters of intent to pursue careers in a variety of fields.
One of the internal internships involved students working with the custodial crews in the school. Weigel said she was extremely impressed when they interviewed the participants to get feedback at the completion of the program. “Their skillset and their work ethic were great. I’ve interviewed a lot of people for employment over the years and these kids ranked right up there with some of those we hired,” she said.
Weigel also mentioned how important getting information into the community about the school and what they’re doing is critically important. “When we don’t let the public know what’s going on, then they’re going to get very limited information and make assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. So, we have to do a good job of messaging.”
Weigel said it’s also important to acknowledge great work by our staff and students. “When we don’t do that, people often feel unappreciated and devalued and soon lose the incentive to do well.”
Weigel noted that nearly 80 percent of a school’s operating budget is spent on thru salaries. “That’s a huge investment in people and we do it on paper, but do we do it in our actions? I think we have to match that investment in taking care of people—both students and teachers.”
Weigel also spoke about some of the improvements that have been made recently. “We looked at incident stabilization for our staff, increasing mental health support, we’re finishing the facelift in the commons area and the cafeteria, we got new steel bleachers in the stadium for the home side and replaced bleachers on the visitor’s side. We also are finishing the expansion of the weight room on the backside of the school, and adding some new equipment.
When it comes to behavior and discipline issues with students, Weigel said she believes there are many schools who share that challenge. “Kids are different—our society is different. We have to change with the needs of our kids, but we have to be sure that the consistency, structure and accountability are tight because when those things get loose, then kids get loose; but when those things are tight, then kids will rise. When they don’t know where to rise to, then guess where they stay? We have to make sure everyone knows what the steps are—kids have to know, parents have to know. Behavior is no different than teaching a reading or math skill. We get kids that come to us all over the place with skills, even in behavior. So we have to have some consistency, instruction, and practices to teach and follow through on how we get those expectations up,” she said.
Weigel’s fresh outlook on the future and her positive attitude in her approach should please district patrons. She is realistic with her approach and understands that especially in a small town, the school is a huge piece of the community. She meets issues head on and has a great capacity for listening.
After a year of determined observation, she is looking forward to this school year and seems ready to take the next steps to make improvements.
She made it quite clear that she knows it is a process that, as she said, “will take time and we can’t magically turn things around, but we’re getting there.”