Shauna Stephanchick - President and Founder of STEP Up Consulting

Shauna Stephanchick is the President and Founder of STEP Up Consulting. She started her career as a first grade teacher in the urban district of Grandview, Missouri and after six years in the classroom, transitioned to the role of instructional coach. During her role as a coach she began diving into the work of Rick DuFour and Professional Learning Communities. This work supported teachers in protocols and processes that shifted the way they think about student learning. Alongside her instructional coaching colleagues, they pioneered the work of Data Teams in the district and supported teachers in best practices of using data to drive instruction. In 2009, she was voted District Teacher of the Year.

She also served the role as a District Instructional Coach for Grandview. During this time the state of Missouri was adopting Common Core and going through big curriculum transitions. Shauna worked closely with the K-12 Curriculum Director to develop Priority Standards, district curriculum documents and common assessments. This role allowed her to provide professional development and learning experiences for multiple positions of the school district, administrators, instructional coaches, department chairs, mentors, and new teachers.
During her time as a K-5 building administrator, she led 425 students and approximately 32 staff members, in raising student achievement in ELA and Math scores. This opportunity allowed for hands-on experience of demonstrating the pillars of a PLC leader with a focus on culture, relationships, shared leadership, data processes and intentional instructional decisions.
After her role as a building administrator, she returned to her true passion of instructional coaching for the Regional Professional Development Center of Kansas City and worked as a Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education PLC consultant and ELA content specialist. This role advanced her knowledge in effective frameworks for implementing PLCs district-wide. It also provided insight to rural, and suburban school districts which widened her perspective beyond the urban setting. During her time as a consultant she helped 5 of her building schools become recognized by DESE as PLC Exemplar Schools of Missouri.
As an English Language Arts content specialist she attended regular state department meetings and stayed at the forefront of changes in curriculum and best practices K-12. One of her proudest accomplishments was partnering with RPDC to provide regional ELA meetings in order to bring pertinent state information back to area leaders so they did not have to commute to state meetings. This structure brought collaborative conversations and partnership among area leaders who developed a network of colleagues beyond their own districts to learn and grow.
While pursuing her career passions, she also started a family (something that took a bit longer than she had expected). However, in three and a half years she had a set of identical boy twins, a set of fraternal girl twins and an ornery singleton (surprise!). This crazy blessing encouraged her to take the risk of opening her own LLC, STEP Up Consulting. This adventure has allowed her to pursue her passions of motherhood, school leadership and organizational consulting, curriculum and assessment auditing and development, PLCs and various professional development sessions based on the needs of districts. Aside from her own business endeavors, she also works with the Greater Kansas City Writing Project, who regularly provides professional development for ELA content meetings at DESE.