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4,000 Years Later, Employees Are Still Serving City Schools System

Posted on: Thursday, 22 December 2005, 06:00 CST

By MARGARET WINDLEY

BY MARGARET WINDLEY

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

OCEANFRONT Some 153 Virginia Beach City Public Schools employees representing nearly 4,000 years of service were recently recognized for their work.

The employee recognition event, held in November at the Ramada Plaza Oceanfront, recognized those who have worked for the school system for 25 years.

The honorees, with a combined 3,825 years of experience, represented most of the divisions schools and departments .

The celebration was a way to thank people such as principal Katherine R. Everett, who has led Seatack Elementary since 199 3.

Now 46, Everett was the youngest principal in the division when she started her post. Still, she had plenty of background, having joined the school system as an educator soon after graduating from Virginia Union University. Her father, James H. Robinson, a retired assistant superintendent, was s upportive, as were several relatives who are also educators, she said.

My father walked me through the system, Everett said .

Proud of her tenure at her current school, she has seen change for the good there.

I have been able to see Seatack go from low test scores to 80s, 90s, 100s, she said.

Everett feels some ownership for those scores due to her letters of support to the School Board in the 1990s to turn Seatack into a year-round school.

Board approval came in 1999. Since then, three more Beach schools have become year-round institutions.

Another Beach system quarter-century honoree, Lourdes M. Smith , 47, has spent 14 of those years t eaching special education at Kempsville Elementary School.

I love working with special needs children, said the Kempsville resident. Seeing them achieve is the reward that I get from teaching them and from seeing them learn. It takes them a little longer, but they can learn.

The relationship that the children have with the other children is very unique, she said. They are accepting and kind and very gentle.

Important, but often overlooked, is the behind-the-scenes work of employees such as those in the Office of Transportation Services.

That includes Mark J. Ludford, 44, who keeps the school buses in good shape. The senior auto technician was 18 when he started fixing the tires on school buses in 1979.

I do everything, the Pungo resident said of his work . I dont rebuild engines, but I have replaced more motors and transmissions than I can remember.

He occasionally drives a school bus, but more often he goes about the city on a service truck to repair broken school vehicles.

I have bled quite a bit from my job, but I have laugh lines too, he admitted.

Programs like this are important ways to recognize longtime employees, said Sheila S. Magula, interim superintendent.

You need to celebrate your successes, said Magula, a 34-year employee of the Beach schools. Its appreciation. They could have gone somewhere else.

The recognition came during a Service Award dinner during which each of the 25-year employees received a plaque and a certificate.

There is a separate recognition program for employees with 30, 35, 40 and 45 years.

We have somebody working toward 50 years, said emcee Gretna Y. Smith , assistant superintendent of the Department of Human Resources.

The system has about 10,000 employees, of which 5,000 are teachers.

Reach Beacon correspondent Margaret Windley at mnw777@ verizon.net .

Source: Virginian - Pilot

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