When Michele Freeman was deciding whether to leave her position as principal of Sterling Elementary School and take the helm of the new Rosa Lee Carter Elementary School, she began to read about Rosa Lee Carter, the woman. What she found inspired her and surprised her.
"I started saying to myself, that's the kind of legacy I would like to leave for children," Freeman said.
AFTER DECIDING to move from Sterling Elementary, where she had served as principal since 2003, to the Dulles South school, Freeman began reflecting on the kind of person and teacher Rosa Lee Carter was and how her life would influence the life of students at Rosa Lee Carter Elementary School.
"I came up with three words: courage, perseverance and excellence," she said. "She had the courage to stand up for what she believed in, which was excellence in education. She never gave up; she found other ways of doing things when doors were closed in her face. She continued to push forth to provide excellence in education for all children."
It was those three words that inspired Rosa Lee Carter elementary's new motto, "Embracing the Legacy."
"It is an honor to be principal in a building named for her," Freeman said. "To be able to continue not only her legacy, but to continue to educate children so they can do anything they want to do."
WHEN FREEMAN begins to hire teachers and staff members, she is looking for one thing.
"I want to know that they love children," she said. "All children, no matter where they come from or what they come with."
Freeman said she also expects her teachers to be passionate about teaching and imparting knowledge to children. They must be knowledgeable about the curriculum, she said, but also flexible and able to adapt the curriculum to the needs of each student.
"I want them to be able to build strong, positive relationships," she said. "In our first year there, we have to build the trust of the community."
Freeman said in a new school it is nice to have a mixture of new and experienced teachers. The new staff can help keep experienced teachers fresh and creative in their teaching styles, she said, and the experienced teachers can act as mentors to newer faculty.
AFTER SPENDING 32 years as an educator, Freeman knows what it takes to make a student, and a school, successful.
First inspired to become a teacher by playing school as a child with her two brothers and three cousins, Freeman received her undergraduate degree in elementary education from Howard University and then her masters in administration from the University of Virginia.
Freeman started teaching in the Archdiocese of Washington before coming to Fairfax County in 1979. When she moved into administration, Freeman spent a year and a half as the assistant principal at Herndon Elementary School. She then spent 15 years working as a principal in Fairfax County.
After leaving the schools, Freeman worked for three years in Fairfax County's central office as Minority Student Achievement Coordinator.
"I really didn't feel the same satisfaction in the central office that I did in working directly with kids," she said.
When she retired from the Fairfax County school system, she began to look for other opportunities.
"Loudoun County was certainly a growing school system," she said. "I had heard so many good things and it has been very positive and very rewarding."
AS SHE PREPARES to open Rosa Lee Carter, Freeman is also working towards another milestone, earning her Ph.D. in education leadership and policy studies from the University of Virginia. For her dissertation, Freeman is writing a case study on Critical Friends, a group of 8 to 10 Loudoun County principals that she is involved in.
"It is a very unique program," she said. "This is one of the few [counties] to use Critical Friends for principals."
John P. O'Connor, staff development supervisor for Loudoun County Public Schools, said the Critical Friends program is a very simple program, where people come together to share their experiences in a given field.
"It is simply a sharing and reflection between a group of principals," he said. "An individual will bring in a situation they've been dealing with and get key feedback from colleagues. They learn from each other by sharing each other's practical experience."
In addition to sharing concerns and problems, the principals will use best practices and discuss techniques that could be used to solve a problem.
"This is a group of people who have something in common," he said. "About half of our elementary schools are involved. It is a really good way to have people exercising collaborative decision making."
Freeman said she enjoys the program because of the way it allows for continued professional development for principals that have been working for many years.
"It supports the idea that principals learn more when they work with other people," she said.
AS FREEMAN SPENDS her days at the School Administration Building in Ashburn, her main focus remains the children who will walk the halls of Rosa Lee Carter in the fall.
"I am trying to get out into the community to meet those people who would be able to help us as a new school," she said. Freeman has been meeting with local businesses to try and establish partnerships, as well as meeting with the school's builders to get constant updates on the status of the building.
"I was out last week and we had a roof top on about 98 percent of the building," she said. "It is really exciting."
In the coming week, Freeman will be meeting with students currently at Legacy and Dominion Trail elementary schools who will attend Rosa Lee Carter in the fall to give them a chance to not only get to know her, but to vote on the school's mascot and colors. The students will choose between being known as the colts, the pandas or the coyotes. Each of the potential mascots was chosen, Freeman said, because their personalities represented something she hoped to give to the students that attend Rosa Lee Carter.
Students will also be invited to write comments on the back of their ballots about something they would like to take from their current school to their new school. Freeman hopes to be able to apply some of the programs, events and activities to Rosa Lee Carter.
"We want the kids to have a sense of belonging from day one," she said.
In addition, Freeman has been searching for a place to hold a staff retreat at the end of July. During the retreat she hopes to give the school's staff a chance not only to bond as a unit, but to come up with a mission statement for the school and to discuss how they are going to present the curriculum to the students.
"My intent is to have developed a purposeful commitment, so everyone, from day one, knows what's expected of them," she said. "And that's to do what is best for the children."