Dr. Pauline Cho is a passionate and innovative school leader of Wedgeworth Elementary School, a Title I school. Principal Cho has a team-centered leadership philosophy and high expectations with an open-door policy. She fosters teacher collaboration and builds strong school communities through open communication, transparency, high expectations, and positive relationships with all stakeholders.
Principal Cho has clear priorities for both staff and students, sets strategic goals, and works intentionally to make them a reality. For example, last school year, the school’s thematic vision was “Connect Deeply, Engage Actively, and Collaborate Meaningfully.” Based on this, the site leadership team set the standards for project-based learning, which integrated New Pedagogies for Deep Learning, coding, and Lego Robotics. These goals were shared at Back-to-School Night and throughout the year with parents, as well as at staff meetings to ensure practices were aligned.
Principal Cho’s vision is to ensure students are productive and competitive leaders in an ever-changing global community by developing the Deep Learning global competencies: character, citizenship, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication. Her top priority is to provide students with a safe and supportive learning environment, full of rich experiences. Recently, Wedgworth pivoted its goals to support and address students’ social-emotional learning needs through the identification of self-perception and emotions. Wedgeworth started a Self-Affirmation Campaign that includes Principal Cho sharing a daily affirmation and every class starting each day with a Self-Affirmation activity. Staff and parent trainings were explicitly focused on providing specific topics to address the needs of the students. Schoolwide Self-Affirmation and Self-Confidence lessons and activities supported students’ emotional outcomes, and Wedgeworth saw a marked decrease in the need for counseling and referrals.
Principal Cho establishes a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for all families. Dr. Cho consistently engages and educates parents through monthly meetings, such as Café with the Principal, English Learner Advisory Committee, School Site Council, Dual Immersion Parent Advisory Committee, and regular communication with the PTO. During the monthly Cafe with the Principal, Dr. Cho shares current school events, important updates, and parenting tips.
Under Principal Cho’s leadership, the dual immersion Mandarin program converted from a self-contained class to a co-teaching model starting in kindergarten where students have an English teacher and a Mandarin teacher to learn both languages. Another example of an innovative program is the creation of Universal Access for 3rd to 5th graders. Based on interest from students and teachers, Wedgeworth was able to offer elective classes in the schedule for Student Leadership, art, math enrichment, STEM, language development, and life skills.
Under Dr. Cho’s leadership for the last 10 years, Wedgeworth Elementary has grown from a small school with less than 300 students to an award-winning, model school with more than 600 students. Wedgeworth Elementary has evolved to be a school where teachers and students thrive and achieve academic excellence. Wedgeworth Elementary has been recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School twice under her leadership.