The story below is from our July/August 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
The Community School director, once a middle school teacher, now leads with a commitment to progressive, student-centered learning.
“I was terrified,” claims Katrina Hill, when describing her first foray into teaching middle schoolers at Community School in Roanoke.
Hill, a Roanoke native, graduated from Roanoke College in 2002 with a B.A. in English and a license to teach high school. Teaching middle school was not part of the plan, but she was “especially drawn to progressive education. Community School was the only place in the area where I could both learn about and actively practice that pedagogy.”
Over the course of her 23-year career at Community School, Hill has taught Upper Elementary (the equivalent of fifth grade) through Seminar (graduating eighth graders), putting that pedagogy into practice as an English Language Arts and Humanities teacher. She also advised the school’s highly successful Model UN program, which has provided students with valuable opportunities in diplomacy, research and public speaking. She previously served as the Middle School Coordinator, and implemented the school’s award-winning advisory program (small groups of middle school students of different ages and levels regularly meet with a designated teacher who counsels them on academic and personal topics). She was instrumental in the school being named a School of Distinction by the Association for Middle Level Education in 2022.
In 2024, Hill decided to apply for the position of director, stating, “When [former director Linda Roth] announced she was retiring, I realized that it was time for the next step … to continue to grow professionally.”
Caleb Amstutz, science teacher and current Middle School Coordinator, believes that Hill “is a good communicator, responsible leader and engaging mentor.” Amstutz has the unique perspective of having been Hill’s student as a child and being her colleague as an adult, and claims that “she [Hill] is the reason I applied for the job.”
Hill has definitive goals in mind to accomplish during her tenure as director: “[E]ducation is in a time of transition; one of my goals is to help [Community School] students … have the tools and skills to navigate an ever-changing technological world while still prioritizing time outside and learning in experiential, hands-on ways.”
“She has navigated us through some challenging situations and is learning what it takes to be an administrator,” says Amstutz.
The 2024-2025 school year tested Hill’s mettle: there was an influx of new students and faculty; there is ongoing construction of a new building to house middle school classrooms; a building sustained major damage during the hurricane last September; a faculty member was injured in a serious accident while on duty; rampant viruses affected nearly half of the school community just before the winter break; and Hill suffered personal losses as well.
Most school days, Hill can be found greeting each student by name in the morning, popping into classrooms, meeting with the administrative team and handling issues that arise at the school. On quiet afternoons, she takes refuge in her office, working on one of her many ongoing projects. Her biggest challenge? “I wish we could serve even more students.”
Where have you seen Hill? If you have attended Community School’s Strawberry Festival, you have probably seen her helping out selling tickets or serving shortcakes. Hill also owns the independent bookstore Rainy Day Reads, which can be found at Sycamore Station in Salem or at a pop-up near you. Rainy Day Reads also hosts two book clubs: one at Crystal Spring Grocery Co. (a chosen book for each meeting) and one at Sycamore Station (a chosen genre for each meeting: readers discuss books within that genre).
In her free time, Hill enjoys spending time with her family, and, of course, reading.
The story above is from our July/August 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
