School thrives under principal’s firm hand

There are two things you don't do when you're around Rosalind C. Taylor.

You don't make excuses, and you don't fall short of expectations.

The principal of Richmond's Woodville Elementary School for the past six years, Taylor mixes excitement and optimism with reality and hard work.

The 590 students in her East End school come from some of the city's poorest, toughest neighborhoods. Between 94 percent and 96 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a federal benchmark for poverty.

It's the kind of place where a student will say his favorite part of an out-of-town school trip was sleeping in a bed or that her parents couldn't make it to teacher conferences because they were in jail.

"Some of the children who come to us are not camera ready," Taylor said Wednesday as she was preparing to greet a group of visiting educators from the Netherlands.

Walk the halls, and you'd never know.

Credit the appearance on Taylor's insistence on following the Woodville way -- "We teach middle-class values," she said -- with an assist from a special program at the University of Virginia.

Five years ago this summer, Taylor was part of the first class of principals from across the state to participate in a program geared to turning around low-performing schools.

The time at the Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education was more than a summer fancy.

Taylor uses those lessons every day, she said. Last week, she shared them with the four people from the Netherlands.

"We're used to visitors here," she said.

In the fall, educators from Ohio toured the school.

And every day, the school hosts volunteers -- more than 120 during the school year -- from a variety of area programs. Some come courtesy of Communities in Schools of Richmond, which helps provide social services.

Others are from the Micah Initiative, an interfaith program that places church members in city schools. (Micah began at Woodville about a decade ago and has since spread to more than half of the city's schools.)

The key to success, Taylor said, is accepting the help with a smile and sharing the load.

"It's about distributed accountability," she said. "It's not a dictatorship."

While the school was on its way to academic success when she arrived, the closing of nearby Whitcomb Court Elementary School after the 2005-06 school year put Taylor and her staff in the position of having to do it all over again.

"I didn't do it," she said of helping Woodville maintain state accreditation standards after the influx of students gave her school the highest enrollment of the city's 29 elementary schools. "She didn't do it. He didn't do it. We did it."

Key members of her staff, in turn, credit her for setting a tone that's as hard to miss as it is easy to follow.

"There's no in-between here," said Mary Townes, one of two assistant principals. "It's a place you either like or you don't. It's always something unpredictable, but everything can be solved. All children can learn. It's all in how you deliver it."

Daryl Roselle, the other assistant principal, agreed.

"You just have to dig in and get at the root of the problem," he said.

That openness to teamwork captured the attention of LeAnn Buntrock, the assistant executive director of the Darden/Curry program.

"A number of principals from Richmond have gone through the program, and all have done a great job," Buntrock said. "But [Taylor] has been a model turnaround principal.

"She knows this is not about one person going in as the Lone Ranger. We're really about sustainability. We need the kind of leaders that involve a team."

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .