Thank
you for inviting me to be a participant in this dedication
ceremony; it is a privilege for me to be part of this
occasion. You see for me, Barbara J. Hawkins was not just
a principal - she was a special kind of principal -one
who sought to transform her students' lives. She was a
principal who truly identified with her students. She
listened to her students' concerns and her staff followed
her lead because she invited them not to 'go along to
get along', but to challenge the conventional order and
rearrange the educational order to inspire our students
to succeed in spite of obstacles that were in their path.
She was a molder and a shaker who
understood that students today are being educated in a
very different world than her parents and grandparents
grew up in. Today's world is filled with crack houses,
school house shootings, child abuse, child neglect and
abandonment just a few of the differences so severe that
sometimes, teachers and administrators are afraid to enter
their Schools to teach ---but enter the schools they must.
They have no choice but to set aside their fears and frustrations
and recapture the imagination of our students. ];or you
see, Barbara Hawkins understood that these are not children
from outer space or from another planet, they are our
sons and our daughters.
