Two months into her job as superintendent of Spokane Public Schools, Shelley Redinger has joined the boards at Greater Spokane Incorporated, United Way of Spokane County, and become involved in the downtown chapter of Rotary Club.

In recent weeks, the 44-year-old Spokane native has met with business leaders, elected officials, and police and fire department administrators, in addition to principals at most schools in the district.

Being a part of the community, Redinger says, is important part of leading a school district with about 3,200 employees and 29,000 students.

"The partnership with business is critical," she says. "A good school district is important to attract business and to create a good workforce."

At most of her meetings, Redinger says she's giving people a three-question survey about the district. The questions are simple: What do you see as strengths of Spokane Public Schools? What needs to be improved? What other suggestions, if any, do you have for us?

Redinger says the survey is a big part of what she's calling her "semester of listening and learning." The process, she says, will help her understand the opinions and perceptions of businesspeople and the community at large and ultimately will help her and the school board to create a strategic plan for the district.

"You have to be continuously improving," she says. "The day you think you've arrived, you're done."

Quickly becoming familiar with a community and its perspective is necessary to lead a district and its staff, Redinger says. She says she took a similar approach during her previous job as superintendent at Spotsylvania County Schools, a district with about 24,000 students in Fredericksburg, Va., and adds, "It helped me understand what our kids are dealing with."

To that end, Redinger also plans to serve as a substitute teacher in a handful of classes this year. She says she has done that in other districts she's led, and it's a good way to stay attuned to what's happening in the schools.

While the listening-and-learning phase is ongoing, Redinger has a few initiatives she already is ramping up.

She wants all-day kindergarten to be an option at each of the district's 34 elementary schools by the start of the 2013-2014 school year. Currently, half of the schools in the district have a fully funded all-day kindergarten option. Funding isn't likely to be available for the other schools, so she expects to have in place a "tuition-based" program, through which parents who choose the all-day option for their children will pay a fee for it.

She says studies have been inconclusive about whether full-day kindergarten gives students an academic advantage, but she says that anecdotally, she has seen it help students in other districts she's worked.

"The more we can expose them to a consistent safe environment early, the better off they'll be," she says.

Also, she says she wants to step up the amount of trauma training in the district, to help teachers, administrators, and other school employees work with students who have been through a traumatic event, such as being a victim of or losing a parent to a violent crime.

In addition, Redinger wants the district to track better its population of homeless students and to get those students the support they need. She says district's estimates suggest it has about 500 homeless students, but she believes the number likely is higher than that. Consequently, she says, greater outreach is needed.

"Students can't learn if their basic needs aren't met," she says, adding, "The drug culture can take hold if the students are out on the streets."

Redinger comes into the superintendent position while the district is negotiating new contracts with its employees' unions. Those include the Spokane Education Association, which represents 11 different bargaining units, and three smaller unions. The last three-year contract is scheduled to expire at the end of August, and Redinger doesn't anticipate having a deal in place by then. She says teachers and other employees are expected to continue to work under the terms of the current agreement until a new contract is agreed upon.

She says she thinks the process has been delayed somewhat by the transition in leadership, not only because she is new to the position but also because the district has a new chief human resources officer, Tennille Jeffries-Simmons. She says they are working through language in the contracts now, and she doesn't have a timeline for when an agreement will be reached.

A 20-plus-year veteran of the education industry, Redinger grew up in Spokane and moved to Chewelah, Wash., with her family when she was a teenager. After graduating from Chewelah High, she attended Washington State University and earned a bachelor's degree in education. After teaching in the Tri-Cities, she moved to South Carolina, where she attended the University of South Carolina and earned a doctorate in education.

She accepted her first superintendent position five years ago at the Oregon Trail School District, in Sandy, Ore., just east of the Portland area. After four years in Sandy, she took the superintendent position in Spotsylvania County. She had only been there one year when she accepted the job in Spokane.

"We were planning on staying there, but then Spokane opened up," Redinger says. "And it's home."