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A Celebration of Women’s History Month: Educators Then and
Now
Sojourner’s Truth Staff
America’s first
African-American female principal of an integrated school
was Maria Louise Baldwin in 1889 when she was selected to
lead a white faculty and predominantly white student body at
the Agassiz Grammar School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Teaching, however, quickly
provided an opportunity for African-Americans in general and
black women in particular to participate in the nation’s
workforce as the 20th century arrived.
One of the most famous and
influential 20th century black female educators
was Mary McLeod Bethune. In 1904, Bethune found the Daytona
Norman and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls in Daytona
Beach, Florida. Bethune believed that education was the
answer to any problems associated with racial inequality and
social injustice.
In 1923, Bethune’s college
merged with the Cookman Institute for Men and became the
Bethune-Cookman College.
In 1930, Euphemia Lofton
Haynes, the first black woman to receive a doctorate in
math, founded the math department at Miner Teachers College
– renamed the University of the District of Columbia. E.V.
Wilkins earned a masters degree from North Carolina Central
University and accepted the role as principal of Washington
County Union School in Roper, North Carolina. Wilkins raised
funds to purchase a school but that provided transportation
for black students. Until then, only white student were
offered busing options.
After the turbulent
1960’s, black educators continued to make their mark. In
1975, Marva Collins founded Westside Preparatory School, an
inner-city school in Chicago, to serve disabled black
children. Collins’ work proved that labels placed on
children were misleading.
Toledo Area School Principals and Administrators
Cecelia Adams, Ph.D,
Toledo native and Scott
High School graduate Cecelia Adams had a long and very
successful career with Toledo Public Schools prior to her
retirement. Her career culminated as an administrator in the
superintendent’s office. No rest for the weary, however.
Several years after retirement, she made the decision to run
for office – for the Toledo Board of Education – in order to
put that vast experience to work once again.
Adams, who earned her
degrees from The University of Toledo, was a science teacher
and a principal before becoming an assistant superintendent.
When she ran for office in 2011, she had some mighty big
footprints to follow. Her mother, Dr. Samantha Adams, was
the first African-American female elected to the school
board.
“I think very
idealistically and about how things can be,” she said during
that campaign. “I consider myself to be a transformational
leader. That is, you see what’s wrong and you try to fix
it.”
Elizabeth Bethany
Bethany, now in her fourth
year as principal of Edgewater Elementary School, is a Scott
High School graduate and earned both a bachelor’s in
education and a master’s in educational administration from
UT.
A native of Sardis,
Mississippi and the youngest of nine children, Bethany grew
up in poverty and moved with her family to Toledo as a young
child.
A long-time TPS employee,
Bethany accomplished some legendary feats as a teacher
before moving into the principal’s office. During her
tenure at the Old West End Academy, Bethany’s students
frequently passed all five portions of the Ohio proficiency
tests. During one stretch, she taught the same group of
students from their second-grade class until the time they
graduated from the school – high achievers all through dint
of hard work.
Daphne Derden Willis
Derden Willis, TPS
director of Career Technology, is a Toledo native and a
Notre Dame Academy graduate who earned her undergraduate
degree in from Bowling Green State University marketing
education, her master’s, also from BGSU, in guidance
counseling and an administration certificate from the
University of Findlay. A 20-year veteran of TPS, Derden
Willis had been a teacher and guidance counselor at Scott
High School before assuming her current duties at Career
Technology.
One of the best-kept
secrets at TPS, Career Technology has nearly 30 programs to
offer students in five departments. Derden Willis supervises
80 teachers around the school district.
“We’re a viable option,”
says Derden Willis. “When a student says ‘I want to be a …,’
we fill in that blank. They can work and develop skills on
their way to an advanced degree, if they prefer.”
Treva Jeffries
More than most people,
Jeffries realizes that Thomas Wolfe was wrong when he wrote:
“You Can’t Go Home Again.” Jeffries, principal of Scott High
School, is a graduate of Scott as well and was thrilled
beyond measure when she was appointed to lead the students
roaming the same halls she had roamed years before. “I bleed
maroon and white,” she says of Scott.
She inherited more than
the building in which she had once studied. She was able to
go home again to a new and vastly improved home. Scott High
School is the beneficiary of a $40 million-plus renovation
project that, among other improvements, brought the school
up to date from a technology standpoint.
Jeffries, who earned her
undergraduate degree from Kentucky State University in
biology/chemistry and her masters in curriculum and
instruction from BGSU is working on her doctorate in
educational administration and leadership studies.
Rhonda Jemison
Jemison, principal in her
first year at Springfield High School, has been with that
school district for nearly eight year. Prior to that, she
worked in the Bedford School District for seven years after
starting her professional career with Toledo Public Schools.
A product of TPS herself,
Jemison graduated from Devilbiss and earned degrees from
UT. For her, the Springfield experience – she is the first
African-American principal of the high school – with its
different demographics, has been interesting and
challenging.
“That has enhanced my
ability to deal with everybody, see different perspectives
and to take everywhere I’ve been and create new things,” she
says.
Martha Jude
Jude, the principal for
the past four years at Pickett Academy, is a Toledo native
with more than two decades years of experience in education.
She graduated from Macomber and earned her undergraduate
degree in education from UT and masters from UT in
administration and supervision.
Prior to her appointment
as principal at Pickett, Jude served as assistant principal
at the school for several years.
For Jude, her choice of
career has never been in doubt from as early as she can
recall. “I knew I wanted to be a teacher from early on,” she
recalls. That calling was reinforced when she was in the
fifth grade at Gunckel and had Ms. Stevens as a teacher. Ms.
Stevens, she says now, was the perfect role model for her
students especially for someone who would aspire to follow
in her footsteps.
Teresa Quinn
Quinn, principal of the
Ella P. Stewart Academy for Girls, has quite a track record
at TPS’s single gender academies. She was appointed
principal of the former Lincoln Academy for Boys for the
2007-2008 school year. When that facility was closed several
years later and the boys were moved to the renovated MLK
building on Dorr, Quinn moved over to Stewart.
Quinn earned her
undergraduate ad masters degrees from UT and has been with
TPs since the early 1990’s and has served in administrative
positions at Waite High School and Deveaux Junior High
School. Having grown up in Toledo, Quinn recognizes the need
for students to identify with someone who has undergone
similar experiences.
“I was very drawn to this
position and realized too that students need a true role
model in terms of someone growing up in the city,” she has
said.
Kathy Taylor
Taylor, principal of
Navarre Elementary School for the past eight years, is a
Toledo native and has been a principal with TPS for a total
of 18 years starting at Mt. Vernon Elementary School. She
earned her undergraduate degree in education from UT, her
masters in administration and supervision from UT and an
educational specialist degree from UT as well.
In her years of
administration, Taylor has implemented a wide array of
programs to recognize staff and students but her greatest
enjoyment has come about when “I know that I have made an
impact in their lives,” she says.
“When I see them out and
about in later years, functioning, going to college, getting
a job and career, that’s the most fulfilling part.”
Deborah Washington, Ph.D.
Washington, principal of
Harvard Elementary School is a 27 year- TPS veteran in her
10th year as principal of Harvard, a perennial
high achiever on the State of Ohio report card. A native of
Monrovia, Liberia, Washington left her homeland in 1972 to
come to America.
She subsequently earned
her Ph.D. from BGSU.
“I make it a point to
learn all my children’s names,” she says regarding the
school’s 450 student enrollment. “There is an African
proverb. ‘If you don’t have anything, your name is what you
have.’”
Robin Wheatley, Ed.D,
Wheatley, the principal of
Toledo Early College High School since the 2006-2007
academic year - the second year of the school’s existence –
has overseen the school’s first graduation, a steady stream
of excellent marks on the state report cards and scores of
successful students earn their degrees – associate degrees
from TECH and bachelor’s degrees as they move on.
A Toledo native, Wheatley
graduated from DeVilbiss an earned her undergraduate degree
from UT, a master’s in journalism from BGSU and a doctorate
in administration and supervision from BGSU. She served as
assistant principal at Waite High School for eight years
before taking over at TECHS. |
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