When you extend your hand to shake Mary Haynes-Smith’s the veteran elementary school principal instead pulls you in for a hug. It’s the kind of warmth that she has also embraced her Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School with.
When you extend your hand to shake Mary Haynes-Smith’s the veteran elementary school principal instead pulls you in for a hug. It’s the kind of warmth that she has also embraced her Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School with.
When she arrived at Bethune school – six months after Hurricane Katrina’s waters breached New Orleans’ levees and put 80 percent of the city under water – she had her work cut out for her. Haynes-Smith had hoped to return to the school she was at before the hurricane, but she was instead assigned to Bethune, located in the city’s tough Hollygrove community whose students had missed more than six months of class time as a result of the storm. The mix meant a “rough start” for Haynes-Smith who had been identified as one of school district’s outstanding administrators.
But the academic achievement award the school picked up recently from the EdTrust, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit education advocacy organization, proves that Bethune’s future looks promising.
The school building, designated a landmark, was still standing but had been ravaged by the storm and squatters sought refuge there in the days after the August 29, 2005 Category 3 hurricane struck the city. The building was dirty, had rats, the walls were destroyed and its copper wiring had been pilfered by vandals, the principal told the Defender.
“The only thing that was left were the plexi-glass windows that should have been destroyed a long time ago,” she said. By the start of the current school year, termites had “literally eaten the first floor up.” And to this day they still don’t have use of that part of the school building.
Haynes-Smith said the students, some of the poorest in the city, were physically and mentally distraught post-Katrina – though she adds that many of them had problems before the storm. She joked that it looked like the school had “every juvenile delinquent in the world.” The police came to Bethune school looking for students alleged to be involved in retail break-ins and there were “kids with ankle bracelets,” some shooting dice and doing other rogue things.
She explained that the majority of the 361 kids at her school “are poor. My kids see a lot of violence. … My kids are angry … and they have the right to be angry,” she said noting stories of domestic and community violence, abuse and neglect. “My kids are struggling in survival.”
But as an educator, Haynes-Smith, 62, was able to see beyond the students’ socio-economic plight.
“We have some really good kids,” she said.
Still the task at hand to teach them seemed a daunting one, Haynes-Smith admitted, but one she was positive could be done. Not only was she dedicated to the idea that the pre-K to sixth graders at her school could and would learn, she implored her hand-picked team of administrators, educators and others she hired to commit to the same idea.
They did.
Haynes-Smith and some of her team members, a term she uses most of the time in referring to her staff, picked up the EdTrust award during the organization’s annual conference in Arlington, Va. Bethune was one of four schools nationwide to receive the honor, which praised each school for its work in helping students to learn and for working markedly to help close the achievement gap.
In the years since the storm, students at Bethune have not only surpassed local district benchmarks in some academic areas, they have exceeded some state standards.
According to data EdTrust used in choosing the elementary school for its coveted award, all of Bethune’s sixth-graders read at least at a basic level, compared with 70 percent of sixth-graders in the state. Further, 62 percent of Bethune’s sixth-graders read at an advanced level, compared with only 4 percent of sixth-graders in the state.
Haynes-Smith was asked by educators and other administrators how she was able to pull her impoverished children above their circumstances and achieve academic success.
The principal offered no magic formal, but instead outlined the plans she executed that included her being able to identify with their situations and her strong resolve that they could learn and focusing heavily on math and reading in daily coursework.
Haynes-Smith’s compassion comes from her own life experiences, which she said have not been too far removed from what her students and their families have experienced. She evacuated from New Orleans with her own two sons to Atlanta after the hurricane.
She had nothing, she explained, including no pertinent documents for herself or her family. She found herself jobless and on welfare.
“It just made me take another look,” she said.
But the benevolence of the people who helped her during that time in her life made her vow that she would somehow pay it forward.
“When I was in Atlanta I said Lord … if you give me the opportunity to go back … I will do it differently. I’m going to right to some wrongs. … because I’ve had an opportunity to walk in the footsteps. …I’m going to make a commitment to never … tire out on a kid,” she said.
Now, Haynes-Smith explained that her staff often feed, clothe and take care of some students’ hygiene before the start of the school day, and makes sure some students have meals after school hours. She gets some help from local businesses and civic organizations, but mostly she and her team pay for things for the students out of their own pockets.
The principal said she is now lobbying her state legislative leaders to install a shower in the school.
She seemed disheartened that her school doesn’t seem to attract the presence and attention of celebrities and national leaders who visit the city and help mark its progress since the storm. Haynes-Smith had hoped that when President Barack Obama was there he would stop by Bethune but he was instead taken to a more affluent school, she said with disappointment.
“I was never looking for any recognition because people pass by poor people all the time and they could care less,” she said. “If you want to help somebody go deep in the ghetto where you’re not gone get the recognition.”
But with the spotlight shining on Bethune now as Haynes-Smith is more and more recognized for making strides in teaching her students, the small school is continuing to flourish.
Copyright 2010 Chicago Defender
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