The city school board gathered Thursday night to interview the second of three superintendent candidates, who provided detailed insight into the strategies her district employed to weather a reversal of fortunes and cope with common education challenges.
Dr. Pamela Taylor Henson, a native of Daphne, Ala., has served, since 2004, as director of instructional support for the Baldwin County Board of Education in Bay Minette, Ala. Though she lacks superintendent experience, she said the scope of her division and the size of her district are almost the equivalent of managing a small school system.
As the head of her department, Henson oversees curriculum, instruction and federal programs for 44 schools serving more than 28,000 students in rural south Alabama.
She has spent 28 years within the Baldwin County Public Schools, spending her early years teaching middle school science and high school marine biology, during which she was named Alabama’s 1989 Science Teacher of the Year, 1994 Outstanding Biology Teacher and 1997 Teacher of the Year. She has amassed more than 60 local, state and national awards.
But though her heart was in the classroom, her mind was set on a future in administration. In 1997, she became the district’s secondary science supervisor and system grant writer, and, in 2004, she took the post she now holds. She earns $104,268 annually.
Riches to rags
In 2004, the Baldwin County Public Schools System was flush with funds. Henson had just taken the job as director of instructional support, and the coffers were seemingly bottomless, thanks to the Gulf Coast’s brisk tourism industry and a booming real estate market.
Every year, the district bought new textbooks, selling the old ones to less affluent school systems. They embarked on a $250 million capital campaign, building new schools and adding wings. They hired more than 400 teachers above the state allocation, paying them with local funds.
When the economy crashed in 2008, it took the district with it.
“The building stopped and we had to make some brutal cuts,” Henson said. “Three schools were closed and 500 employees lost their jobs. It was an awful time for us.”
Central office operations were switched to a four-day work week to save utility costs. District officials slashed spending and asked for a temporary one-cent sales tax increase, expected to generate $25 million.
One month later, in April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig sank, unleashing 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico and impacting hundreds of miles of coastline across four states.
Marine wildlife died, washing onto beaches blackened by the viscous crude. The tourists stayed home, somewhat negating the benefits from the tax increase.
The coastal economy has not yet recovered, Henson said. She expects the Baldwin County School District will ask for another temporary sales tax increase in November.
But financially, the district weathered the storm.
‘It takes a village’
The challenges weren’t over. Seventeen schools were placed on academic probation. State audits yielded multiple citations. The graduation rate hovered at 75 percent.
The district had to develop new strategies to cope with old problems.
Though the poverty level district-wide is 40 percent, it ranges between schools from 30 percent to 79 percent, Henson said.
Officials developed a graduation tracking system, which allows her to examine individual students’ absentees, behavior, grade-point average and credits — all predictors, she said, of student dropout.
They took the school with the highest absenteeism and discipline problems and gave Apple laptops to students. The issues abated. This fall, every high-schooler in Baldwin County will receive a MacBook Pro through Apple’s 1:1 Laptop Initiative.
When they couldn’t afford textbooks, they recruited teachers to write elective curriculums. When they couldn’t hire teachers, they partnered with community colleges to offer classes for dual credit.
They utilized parents as volunteers and solicited ministers to mentor young black males. Retired teachers helped with tutoring.
“It takes a village to raise a child,” Henson said. “The school system belongs to them and they need to have a voice at the table.”
Plans for Columbus
Henson said she was attracted to the Columbus superintendent position, because she found the magnet schools, which Baldwin County does not have, “intriguing” and she was impressed by the district’s 50 National Board-certified teachers, which she said indicated the caliber of the staff.
A proponent of teamwork and professional development, she said she supports merit raises for teachers and would accept a pay cut, if teachers’ pay was reduced or jobs were eliminated.
Looking at CMSD’s test scores, she said the lackluster performance “appears to be core instruction problems and maybe some classroom management problems.”
The only way to improve, she said, is to know which students are not proficient.
“You must know as much as you can about No Child Left Behind,” Henson said. “It’s important you are well-versed. You can have all the technology in the world, but it will not replace a good classroom teacher.”
She also said she would not allow favoritism, which some district employees have cited as a concern.
“It’s not going to happen under my watch,” Henson said. “When I’m hiring, I expect the best to be hired, not because they’re the daughter of a school board member or the preacher’s wife or a board member happens to go to that particular church. It’s not going to happen.”
She concluded by saying her parents instilled a strong work ethic, which pushed her to become the first in her family to graduate from high school and attend college, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in science, educational leadership certification and a doctorate in educational leadership.
“I am passionate about education,” she said. “I love children. I’ve been out of the classroom 15 years, but my heart will always be in the classroom. I work incredibly hard. I’ve given my life to (the Baldwin County) school system and I will do the same for you, as well.”
Community feedback
Columbus homemaker Susan Whitman clutched a candidate feedback survey after Henson’s interview as she chatted with Cindy Buob, an art teacher at East Mississippi Community College, and Lori Pierce, a foreign language teacher at Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.
Whitman said she was impressed with the depth of information Henson provided, while Buob said she was impressed by her awards and the success she’s achieved through hard work.
“She has a lot of experience and was able to elaborate upon specific programs and instances where she was able to effect change,” Pierce said. “All the things she talked about were the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we need brought to Columbus.”
The final candidate interview will be held tonight at 6 p.m. at Brandon Central Services, where CMSD Interim Superintendent Dr. Martha Liddell will give her presentation and submit to the board’s questioning.
Board President Tommy Prude said the district’s new superintendent could be named by the middle of next week.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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