CLIFTON PARK — The new Shenendehowa superintendent started her career as a kindergarten teacher.

Back in 2000, when she was teaching 5-year-olds, she never imagined she would one day lead the biggest school district in the Capital Region.

“I thought I would teach forever because I loved it,” said Superintendent Cecily Wilson-Turner. “I loved seeing the kids transform over the course of a school year.”

She taught at Arbor Hill Elementary School in Albany, the same school she had attended as a child. After teaching kindergarten, she spent four years teaching third and fourth grade in a system called “looping,” in which she taught a class of third graders and then moved up with them to teach them fourth grade.

At the same time, she joined a committee focused on ways to improve the school. Her principal encouraged her to take classes in administration, saying she would be good at it.

In her first educational administration class, at the College of Saint Rose, she recognized a technique her principal was using in the committee meetings. He was trying to get buy-in from the teachers to change the way they taught.

She had heard teachers complain about this, saying, “Why doesn’t he just say, ‘Everybody, do it’?”

Now, suddenly, she understood.

“We had to understand the why,” she said. “People have ownership of the work that’s going to happen. It’s not being done to them; it’s being done with them.”

She loved the idea of seeing a building transform as the leaders get all of the adults “rowing in the same direction.”

She went on to become a principal of Albany’s Sheridan Preparatory Academy and then Albany High School. She was promoted to assistant superintendent in Albany and eventually moved to Shenendehowa as deputy superintendent.

She has served as interim superintendent at Shenendehowa since Superintendent L. Oliver Robinson retired at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.

At Shenendehowa, she is excited about the new full-day kindergarten building, which will open with 40 classrooms this fall. It will be the first time Shenendehowa has ever offered full-day kindergarten. The district is one of the last in the state to transition from half-day kindergarten, a move it made in response to requests from the public.

“It’s my favorite thing. It is such an exciting moment for the district,” Wilson-Turner said.