Her Story
About Lawanda
I have dedicated 26 years to education, inspired by my own drive and desire to educate children. As a principal, my typical day involves opening the school, chatting with educators to make sure they're ready for the day, and communicating with students to ensure they're all ready for learning. Every day, I remind all my teachers, faculty, staff, and students that I love them, and there is positively absolutely nothing they can do about it, and that I believe they will do their best and have a day of learning. My values are around loving learning and loving people, and being able to provide something for them that touches or changes their lives in a positive way. In the midst of learning, tests, requirements, and lessons, through everything that we have to do, I just feel like people should be seen and heard, and made to feel like they matter. One of my greatest achievements has been starting my own mentorship program to mentor male students in the school who have different challenges, some in single-family homes and living in poverty. I want them to be able to see and hear something that encourages them to be their best and to strive for high achievement and dreams and goals. I organize different males in the community to come and speak with the young men, and we meet every Monday where I speak with them about anger management, conflict resolution, goal setting, and ways to just be better every day.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lawanda
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would challenge them to do everything that they're mandated to do, but to remember to love the job and love the children, regardless of what mandates they have to do. Like, you have to lesson plan, you have to read, you have to study, you have to score papers, you have those things that you have to do, but to maintain their passion of love for learning and making learning fun for students. Because I know that when students know how much you care, they're willing to learn whatever you're teaching them. So, just making sure they keep that the main theme, a love for the students that they are teaching.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think challenges would include just the overall lack of respect for education that we used to have, that used to be present. And that just feeds into everything that you want to do. The biggest opportunities would be really mastering educational technology to help with that lift in learning. So, being able to use computers, AI, and smart technology to help teachers lift that load is high coming and what they should be focusing on.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
My values are around loving learning and loving people, and just being able to provide something for them that touches or changes their lives in a positive way. In the midst of learning, tests, requirements, lessons, through everything that we have to do, I just feel like people should be seen and heard, and made to feel like they matter. One of my core values is also making sure that children have everything they need. So, making sure they have clean uniforms, they have shoes, they have just everything that they need is very important to me.
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