Recollections Bitter and Sweet: Memoirs of a School Administrator

CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword

I. In the Beginning, an Educator Is Born:

Welcome to the Field of Education

II. A New Environment:

High School Ups and Downs

III. Joys and Sorrows:

Welcome to Elementary School

IV. Hello:

Are You the New Principal?

V. A New Facility, a New Outlook:

But Trouble on the Horizon?

VI: Job Well Done:

Rewarding Performance and Behavior

VII. The Final Year:

Life after School of Distinction Status

VIII. The Last Day:

All Good Things Must Come to an End

IX. Insights Gained:

A Retrospective Glance

Epilogue

About the Author

Personal Resource Guide

Dedication

This book is dedicated to:

Mrs. Vivian S. Robinson, my mother, for loving me unconditionally, serving as my role model, and for encouraging me to complete my book

Mrs. Necia Smith Allen, my sister (now deceased), for having been my best friend and mentor

My brothers, Dr. Carlos L. Smith (and wife Linda), and Col. (Ret.) Frank T. Smith (and wife Westdrena), for their love, support, and encouragement

The Kennedy, Smith, and Stringer families for providing a strong rich heritage of family ties and loving kinship

My nieces and nephews in NC, SC, GA, and WA, for their beauty, talent, wit, and love

Matthew Evans for his love, support, and encouragement over the years

Dr. Bertha Maxwell Roddey for being a trailblazer, a courageous leader, and an outstanding educator

Dr. James Lyons for providing outstanding leadership and for encouraging everyone in the cohort to stay on track and complete the doctoral studies

Dr. and Mrs. James L. Pughsley for their leadership, courage, strength, and excellent contributions to the field of educational leadership

Mr. Calvin Wallace for his leadership and his willingness to help others succeed

Mrs. Muffet Garber for her leadership, mentorship and advocacy for children

Dr. Clifford A. Jones, Sr., my pastor, for being a continuous source of inspiration through his sermons and words of wisdom, and to the first family, Mrs. C. Brenda Jones, Rev. Michelle Jones, and Rev. Anthony Jones for their friendship and kindness over the years

Mrs. Evelyn Blackwell Ray and her family for all the years of being my loving family away from home

Mr. and Mrs. William Jones (Cathy and Bill) and their daughter Stacy for many years of friendship and love

Dr. Lillie Hibbler and Ms. Pat Schulz, my fellow church members, for giving me the inspiration to complete this project

Mrs. Peggy S. Mitchell, my high school French teacher, for being a positive role model and for strengthening my determination to become an educator

Dr. and Mrs. William Rutherford (Joan and Bill) for many years of an enduring friendship

Recollections Bitter and Sweet: Memoirs of a School Administrator

Foreword

The life of a school administrator can be one of exhilaration and exhaustion, excitement and frustration, intensity and powerlessness, even comedy and tragedy. The writer has a three-fold purpose for sharing her experiences as a school administrator: (1) To honor and encourage the thousands of men and women who choose education, especially educational leadership, as their life’s work; (2) to share the importance of maintaining a sense of humanity as well as a sense of humor in trying to solve school-related problems; and (3) to demonstrate that the mere act of helping others, even in small ways, can often be its own reward. The writer decided to focus on the amazing, incredible, sensitive, marvelous, even sorrowful stories of the children that she encountered during her tenure as a school administrator.

After a brief biographical sketch of the author’s background and early years in education as a teacher and a media specialist, the focus of the book becomes the children that the writer met during her twenty-one years as a school administrator. Although this book is based on actual incidents that occurred during those twenty-one years, all names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Also, in a few cases, minor details have been slightly altered in order to further protect individual privacy. This book is not intended to be a self-help book, nor does the author claim to have been a perfect school administrator who knew all the answers to the myriad of problems encountered in school settings. This book is merely a labor of love that the author wishes to share with school administrators, teachers, counselors, parents, students, and any other groups or individuals who are interested in helping young people to reach their maximum potential. The writer has always had great respect and admiration for the adults who worked under her supervision in various capacities at the school level. However, this book does not attempt to navigate into any personnel-related issues, such as teacher job performance, teacher morale, staff interpersonal relationships, or ideological differences, but will naturally include references to the adults who worked with the students on a daily basis. Please note that in chapter 2 (A New Environment: High School Ups and Downs), the author does share information about a conflict of opinions she had with a supervisor over the handling of a disciplinary matter. Otherwise, the majority of the book is focused on the students, not the employees.

I. In the Beginning, an Educator Is Born: Welcome to the Field of Education

I was the third child born into a working-class family that resided in public housing from my birth through my grade-school years. My family consisted of my mother, a homemaker; my father, a nightclub waiter and sometimes bartender who had served in the U. S. Army during the WWII years, but was not deployed overseas; an older brother, an older sister, and later, a younger brother. When I was in 3rd grade, my father was killed in a car accident on his way home from work in the early hours of morning. It was a devastating loss for my mother, and though the memories of that time are a bit blurred, we somehow managed to rally together as a family to help each other overcome our grief and adjust to our loss. A few years later, my mother was remarried to a man who owned a thriving business—a combination poolroom and small store. Although my stepfather did not have a formal education, he was strong in common sense and business acuity. We moved from our apartment to a nice spacious house owned by my stepfather, and my siblings and I quickly made friends in our new neighborhood. We were fortunate that we did not have to transfer to a new school and life as we knew it resumed, but with a few more opportunities and advantages. For example, I had taken piano lessons when we lived in our apartment, but I had to practice on a neighbor’s piano because we did not own one. When we moved to my stepfather’s house, he had a nice upright piano, with a couple of problem keys, but it was wonderful to have access to my own piano. Playing the piano became a lifetime hobby and an impetus to an interest in all things related to music and the arts. In fact, I went through a brief phase when I thought I wanted to be a concert pianist, but my talents on the keyboard did not support such a lofty goal. However, while my fascination with music would always be an important aspect of my life, it took a back seat to my impassioned desire to become a teacher.

From as far back as I can remember, I always said that I wanted to be a teacher. I still have vivid memories of playing school with children in the neighborhood, and always insisting on being the teacher. My teachers in elementary school were wonderful role models, so it was easy to want to pattern my life after them. They were smart, beautiful, knowledgeable, and strict. I was always a good student and always involved in school activities, such as chorus, drama, dancing, and playing musical instruments. Although I went through another phase where I decided that I wanted to be a dancer, a choreographer, and owner of my own dance studios, I came back down to earth and realized that being a teacher was more practical and more readily accomplishable. As I continued to make good grades and continued to love school, I dreamed of going to college and making my mother proud of me. My mother, who was my biggest supporter, always attended my school plays, dance recitals, piano recitals, or whatever activity I was involved in throughout my childhood. She provided the same support to my sister and my brothers. My mother was very impressed with the fact that I wanted to be a teacher, and she always encouraged me to do my best. She confided in me that her mother had wanted her to go to college to become a teacher, but that after high school, she decided that college was not for her. She came to regret her decision in later years. My mother’s story of missed opportunity inspired me even more. When I reached high school, I was already on track to go to college. My academic successes led to my being inducted into the National Honor Society. Our guidance counselor made sure that those of us who were college bound took the appropriate courses and gained the credits we would need in order to be admitted to the college of our choice. I had an admirable group of friends who were all interested in going to college and having a career. In fact, our group had been together since around 2nd grade and we remained friends throughout high school. Although we all went our separate ways, choosing different colleges in different states, we kept in touch with one another over the years and continue to see each other occasionally at reunions or other social events.

In college, I pursued a double major in English and French. I had intended to major in French and Psychology, but an English professor who had read my college entrance essay convinced me that I had the ability and skills to do an outstanding job as an English major. My desire to teach grew during my college years, and with passion, I affirmed and pursued my decision to be a teacher. When I did my student teaching during my junior year, I began to have doubts, for the first time, about my plans for the future. I had no fears about teaching my subject matter, but I started having misgivings about whether I would be able to be in charge of a classroom full of teenagers. I talked to some of my friends who had already graduated and were teaching, and they assured me that I would love it. I also talked to my sister who had already started her teaching career. She told me that she loved what she was doing, and that I would not have any problems. When I graduated, I was shocked when I started getting job offers from different parts of the country, such as Port Arthur, Texas, Jacksonville, Florida, and Atlanta, Georgia. I learned later that I, along with valedictorians and salutatorians from other colleges and universities, had been featured in a magazine article that reported our academic successes and information about our plans for the future. I was very flattered to receive offers for jobs for which I had not applied or had not been interviewed. However, I took what I considered to be the safe road and applied for teaching positions only in my hometown and in my college town. Three months after I finished college, I chose the latter, and started my first job teaching 10th grade English and French I. It was the beginning of a lifelong career in education that included being a teacher, a media specialist, an observer-evaluator, a high school assistant principal, an elementary school assistant principal, and an elementary school principal. Indeed, from humble beginnings, an educator was born. Since those early days many years ago, I have never regretted my decision to enter the field of education as a teacher. I enjoyed teaching students about sentence structure, parts of speech, subject-verb agreement, and the principles of good writing. But most of all, I loved teaching students American literature, and later, British literature, especially the Shakespearean plays. I was so proud of my students when they began to understand setting, theme, and denouement. Although I was hired to teach English, I was also asked by the principal to teach a semester drama class and prepare students for a statewide competition. I selected a play in the comedy category for our entry into the competition. As we prepared for the competition, the student actors, who were all members of the senior class, stayed after school to practice. I was pleasantly surprised by their work ethic and their willingness to go back over scenes that were not quite ready for presentation. When we arrived at the site of the drama competition, we were startled by the large number of schools that were participating in the event. We were very gratified to come away with a 2nd place award in the comedy category. That was my first and last foray into the field of drama. As our enrollment increased, I was happy to go back to teaching a full load of English classes. However, I thought that teaching drama helped me to expand my horizons, as well as helped me to do a better job of teaching literature. Speaking of teaching literature, I have lucid memories of what many referred to as the race riots that occurred when our large school system went through the painful process of integrating the schools in the early 1970s. The school system had devised a plan that relied on busing to transport black children to previously all-white schools. Without going into a detailed account, I will only share at this time that as a teacher, I do remember that students walked out of class daily at the beginning of my 5th period British Literature class. I remember that all faculty and staff members were asked to help supervise the students, black and white, who stood on a hill in front of the school holding signs showing opposition to one another. The white students held signs saying such things as (paraphrasing), Integration will not work; Go back to your own schools; 2,4,6,8, we don’t want to integrate; or Segregation is the law of the land. The black students held signs saying such things as (paraphrasing) We didn’t ask to come here; We’re here to stay; No justice, no peace; or I too have a dream." On many of those days when students were demonstrating in front of the school, the police were on hand in riot gear to maintain peace. As a teacher at that time, I do not remember any specific acts of violence that occurred on our campus during the racially-charged demonstrations. The subject of integration was both controversial and volatile, and the students at our large suburban high school were caught up in the drama that was sweeping the land. All of the turmoil surrounding the integration of schools in the large school district in which I worked cannot be adequately explored in this book. However, sometimes in the near future, I plan to write about school integration as I lived it as a teacher and about re-segregation as I lived it as an administrator. Looking back, I can say that the school system in which I was employed throughout my career tried a variety of options to integrate the schools. Some of the district’s efforts were very successful. In fact, for a number of years, after the early turmoil, our school district was held in high esteem and served as a model for other districts, especially in the areas of busing and maintaining peaceful interracial relations among students. Unfortunately, in spite of the district’s valiant efforts, there was a problem with sustainability, and re-segregation occurred during the ensuing years. However, this same school system that I worked for over a period of many years seems to be committed to utilizing programs and seeking approaches that will ultimately benefit all students. The business of educating thousands of children in a fair and equitable manner will most likely continue to be a challenging, controversial, and sometimes even an insurmountable task for school districts all over the country.

As desegregation efforts continued in the district, I decided to go back to school on a part-time basis in order to pursue a master’s degree, and eventually become a school media specialist. From the time I finished my undergraduate degree, I knew that I would return to school in the future. However, I was indecisive and at a crossroad as to what area of study I would pursue. I had to decide between getting a master’s degree in English, library science, or speech pathology, all areas of interest for me. My choice was to try for a master’s degree in the area of library science. My reasoning was that I could remain in the field of teaching yet broaden my horizons by sharing my knowledge and expertise as a school media specialist, the