Bouncing along in a church van motoring through her East End neighborhood, 8-year-old Precious King, sitting in the seat in front of me, began to sing: We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz . . . Actually, we were on our way to the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and, eventually, to the James River for a little fishing.

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.