Who’s new in school II

Editor’s Note: Final in a two-part series.

ALBANY — Dougherty County School Superintendent Ken Dyer announced on April 25 that six new principals would take the helm of local schools. Shanekia Williams, Ronald Gadson and LaVenice Grace will direct Live Oak Elementary School, Radium Springs Middle School and Turner Elementary School, respectively.

SHANEKIA WILLIAMS

Williams has been a Sumter County Teacher of the Year, an elementary school math teacher, instructional coach assistant principal and an adjunct professor at Albany State University. She worked with Radium Spring Elementary Principal Bruce Bowles and other leaders to create “programs and initiatives that saw that school experience the largest student growth of any DCSS elementary school.”

Williams earned a bachelor of science degree in early childhood education in 2009 from Albany State University along with a master of science in the same program in 2011. She went on to earn an educational specialist degree in mathematics from Nova Southeastern University. She is also currently pursuing a doctoral degree in leadership and educational administration at Capella University. Williams holds endorsements for reading and gifted education.

Plan

“I would say (my plan is) just to continue to be me,” Williams said. “I have a very vibrant personality. I plan on taking that with me. I think that anytime you step into a leadership role, you want to make sure you build your people up. I think my No. 1 priority is to just build more leaders. Building morale and building leadership capacity are definitely No. 1 for me.

“You can’t just go in wanting to do a whole lot of different things. You’ve got to plan first. You have to observe first, and I’m an observer. I’m going in with an open mind and an open heart to get to know people, get to know people’s areas of strengths and to see how they can help me be a better leader.”

Confidence in plan

“I’m pretty confident because my personality is just who I am. I’m confident in the fact that I can build leaders,” Williams said.

What she will focus on

“I don’t know the dynamics of the school yet because I’m not there yet,” Williams stated. “I have been studying the data, so we definitely want to move numbers. We want to increase our student growth, period. When we all have that same vision, same goal, we’ll all start to move numbers that way. Student growth will start to happen before we even know it.”

RONALD GADSON

Gadson has accumulated more than 25 years of experience in the education system, with a job history including positions from teacher to administrator. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in history and a master of arts degree in teaching in social sciences from Grambling State University. He went on to earn his educational specialist degree from Troy State University.

During his career, Gadson “sought and obtained $2.7 million in federal funding from the School Improvement Grant Program. The funds allowed his school to provide more effective professional learning and improve technology in the areas of hardware, software and infrastructure.”

Plan

“One of the things I want to work on the first year is the culture,” Gadson said. “One of the things that I pride myself on, and being around people who are successful, they try to create what’s called a successful culture. Because if you can create a culture wherein everyone can be successful – not just the students, but the teachers, the custodians, the bus drives, everyone’s going to be successful – then everything takes care of itself.”

Confidence in plan

“Very confident. I’ve done it before,” Gadson said. “Please note that it’s much easier said than done. There are just a lot of strategies and resources, research-based strategies that we’ll begin to look at. Also, we’ll specifically look at those strategies and resources that have already been used effectively and just continue to build upon that.”

What he will focus on

“Unfortunately, the state and federal governments use test scores to determine whether or not a school is being successful,” Gadson said. “That’s my first thing that I’ll be working on is making sure that we improve or increase academic achievement when it comes to our students. That’s part of that success that I’m building. If my teachers are successful, the students will follow.

“(Then) I’ll begin to look at instructional styles. How is instruction delivered? Are we meeting the needs of the children? Are we looking at where the children are and trying to bring them up from where they are as opposed to starting them where we think they are and trying to get them somewhere they’ll never be? We’ll do a better job of looking at where they are and then move them to greater heights.”

LaVENICE GRACE

Grace has worked in elementary education systems in Houston, Lee and Dougherty counties. As the assistant principal of Morningside Elementary, Grace has been a part of Christine Ford’s leadership team. As a member, he influenced many of Morningside’s programs and directives.

He earned bachelor’s, master’s and educational specialist degrees from Albany State University. He is pursuing a doctorate degree in curriculum and instruction from Nova Southeastern University.

Plan

“(My plan is) to keep moving the school forward,” said Grace. “I think Dr. (Deborah) Jones, the present principal here, has done a really good job, and my goal is to continue to move the school forward by bringing in (all) the parents, all the stakeholders, including everybody in the process of going forward with the school and being an innovative leader and having shared leadership.”

Confidence in plan

“I’m very confident. I think one of my strong points is to be able to persuade and be an innovative leader,” he said. “I think that I can coerce people to do the right thing. I just see where we’re going. I see the light at the end of the tunnel where we’re trying to go, and it’s going to be great. Turner will be a premier school.”

What he will focus on

“My thing is to look at everybody, to look at the whole child with the social aspect of it, with the emotional aspect (of it), to do all those things and make the children become better kids overall,” said Grace. “I feel that if you’re going to get some growth out of children, you’ve got to make sure that everybody is involved. You’ve got to make sure that you meet the needs of all the children. We have a parent facilitator here to talk with those parents on parenting skills. We have to work on the whole entire child to meet the needs in order for the children to grow.”

Grace said another approach he will bring to the school is “I have the three R’s that I want to use: create long-lasting relationships, rigor with the instruction and we have to also make sure that our children are ready for the next level of learning.”