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One celebrated victory and said farewell.
One saw reading proficiency double – and knows he still has a huge task ahead.
A rookie is eagerly planning her second year leading a school, and a veteran is crossing her fingers for two more years of good health.
Principals play a crucial role in Superintendent Peter Gorman's plan to strengthen Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. During the past school year, the Observer profiled four: West Charlotte High's John Modest, Bruns Avenue Elementary's Steve Hall, South Charlotte Middle's Christine Waggoner and Pinewood Elementary's Trish Sexton.
State test results put the ultimate seal of success or failure on a principal's work. Official scores won't be out until August, but CMS recently posted its own preliminary tally.
Read an update of how the principals are doing. 4B.
Modest: Moving on
When John Modest came to turn around West Charlotte High in 2005, the school had a 37 percent pass rate on state exams, the lowest in CMS and one of the worst in the state.
When he handed out diplomas in June, that rate had climbed to almost 69 percent.
It wasn't just the seniors saying goodbye. This spring Modest accepted a post overseeing 23 schools in Guilford County. He started Wednesday.
“We accomplished the goal that I was brought to West Charlotte to perform,” he said.
Modest, recruited from a high-performing Wake County school, was a pioneer in CMS's push to give principals more responsibility. He says his toughest task was overturning a culture of failure among students and faculty.
Almost half the teachers who were at West Charlotte when he arrived are gone, he says. Some left voluntarily. Others were fired or pushed to resign, as Gorman gave Modest and others new power to bump those who couldn't succeed with students of poverty.
Modest says Shelton Jefferies, a central office administrator who will take his place, inherits a prouder school and a stronger faculty.
Challenges remain. Next year the poverty level should top 75 percent.
Modest considers most of the faculty excellent, but says there are weak spots. The big pay bumps that had been used to recruit and reward successful teachers disappeared with county budget cuts.
And recession-driven layoffs have cost West Charlotte some good teachers: Modest says a math teacher who helped 90 percent of her students pass the Algebra II exam lost her job because she was a retiree.
“Being a principal at West Charlotte High was definitely the most challenging professional experience I've had to go through,” says Modest, 62. “I think in the end I'm a better person for it.”
Hall: Signs of hope
Steve Hall was appalled at the level of failure that had become the norm at Bruns Avenue Elementary when he arrived in 2008. Fewer than one in five students was reading on grade level, and fewer than half had mastered math.
Clearly, the teachers weren't succeeding. He had the power to replace some with top performers lured from other schools with signing bonuses.
But Hall, who had just left the high-scoring Sharon Elementary, took a chance. He removed only three, hoping the rest could do better if someone showed them how.
Results for the center-city school, where almost all children come from low-income homes, made him feel good about his gamble. Reading pass rates almost doubled, from 19 percent to 36 percent. Math and science scores rose, too.
Bruns is no longer CMS's lowest performer. But with an overall pass rate of 43 percent, “we are not a transformed school,” Hall says.
The first year, the staff zeroed in on boosting attendance. At year's end, when they looked at the kids who failed, they realized many were tardy so often they were still missing big chunks of classroom time. Next year the faculty will work on convincing parents who may be struggling to survive that they must get their kids to school on time.
Hall also plans to help his faculty develop more sophisticated teaching techniques to help children catch up.
When Gorman tapped Hall and six others to launch his “strategic staffing” effort, he called it a three-year mission. Hall says in two more years, Bruns will succeed: “It's a matter of culture, belief and astounding persistence.”
This year, he says, his job was to open a door for teachers. “Their job is to walk through the door.
“This becomes their school to transform.”
Waggoner: Staying strong
Last summer, Christine Waggoner was trying to reassure parents she wasn't stigmatizing their kids by assigning them to all-boy or all-girl classes at South Charlotte Middle.
Now she's fielding requests from families who want their children placed there.
The single-sex classes Waggoner created in 2008-09 are among the innovations she uses to challenge the strong students her school serves, while providing aid to a small but growing number who arrive weak in basic skills.
While many principals grapple with poverty, Waggoner and many of her suburban colleagues serve areas where family income, education and engagement are high. They must prove public schools can match private options. They must keep performance high while students transfer in from weaker urban schools.
With budget cuts forcing layoffs, some suburban families worry their schools will suffer, missing out on the aid that goes to higher poverty.
Waggoner says her extras, which include the single-sex classes and special 45-minute electives, won't disappear. She gave up a security guard and a teacher assistant to avoid losing a teacher. The full-time choral teacher will now split time with another school.
Cutbacks in school administration could make it tough to supervise a large slate of after-school activities, including arts and sports, she notes.
In 2008, test scores brought what passes for bad news at South Charlotte: The school fell just short of the 90 percent required to earn the state's School of Excellence label. This year's 93 percent easily clears the bar, though Waggoner notes that rivals Robinson and Davidson IB did better.
Four years into her stint at South Charlotte, Waggoner was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells. She's in remission and believes her work keeps her strong. Her goal is to work two more years and retire at 65.
“I went to the doctor Thursday and he was very pleased,” she said last week.
Sexton: One down
Trish Sexton knew her first year would be tough.
She took over Pinewood Elementary, a high-poverty south Charlotte school struggling to keep a “beat the odds” reputation.
She followed an award-winning veteran who took key staffers when she left for a nearby elementary school. And Sexton faced a new academic inspection and a budget crunch like nothing in recent memory.
The spring inspection brought mixed reviews: Administrators and consultants found significant weaknesses and strong signs of promise, including Sexton's “clear vision for improvement.”
Even before Sexton came to Pinewood, the school's academic reputation had taken a hit when the state made reading tests tougher to pass. In 2007, when fewer right answers were required for a grade-level score, about 90percent of Pinewood's kids passed. In 2008, that dropped to 46 percent.
This year Pinewood's results inched up, driven mostly by a new state rule requiring students who fell short the first time to take the tests again.
“I was definitely pleased that we had gone in the right direction,” Sexton said. But with barely over half the kids reading on grade level, she knows she and her faculty need to step up the pace.
Budget cuts and enrollment projections forced Sexton to get rid of four teachers and three assistants. Still, she's upbeat about her first year, and eagerly planning the staff retreat for 2009-10.
“People adopt your leadership style and they adopt your attitude,” she says.
Sexton still works at balancing work and family. She and husband Mark live in Fort Mill, S.C., and have three children. The oldest, Emma, came to Pinewood with her mom for kindergarten, which often meant staying late into the evening.
Sexton says she and her husband debated moving her closer to home. But Emma finished kindergarten reading at about a second-grade level.
She'll be back at Pinewood next year.
