‘Phenomenal educator’ retires from city schools after 35 years

By Harold Gwin

Henrietta Williams said she will miss the kids — even the ones who made her mad.

YOUNGSTOWN — She’s been called “phenomenal,” “devoted,” “committed” and someone who will leave a big gap to fill when she leaves her post as principal/dean of Youngstown’s East High School next month.

Henrietta Williams is retiring after 35 years of service to the city schools.

To say she will be missed “is an understatement,” said Superintendent Wendy Webb. Williams has always demonstrated “full commitment and passion for the children of this community,” she said.

“Ms. Williams is a devoted, caring teacher and administrator, one who gives her ‘babies’ consistent love, even when it’s the tough variety,” said Manfred Michalski, a special-needs teacher at East.

“When these same students visit her after graduation, they often comment on how clearly she had explained the choices to be made, how she emphasized ownership and how wonderful it was that they had the opportunity for free education,” he said.

“I never thought I was doing anything great. I just always looked for ways to get my kids interested in the classroom,” Williams said, giving credit to staff, students and their parents.

“If we succeeded, the credit goes to them,” she said.

“I’ve never had anybody tell me no when I asked them for something, and I was willing to roll up my sleeves and jump in,” she said.

She is a hometown girl, a graduate of North High School (“I’m a North Bulldog,” she admits), which closed in the late 1970s, and a graduate of Youngstown State University.

Ironically, perhaps, education wasn’t her first career choice.

She was always interested in being an educator but had been accepted into law school following her 1974 graduation from YSU.

She took a job as a substitute teacher in the city schools to help pay her way through law school, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“I found out that I loved it,” she said of teaching, and she got a permanent position with the district in 1975.

She spent 23 years in the teaching ranks and 12 as an administrator, earning a graduate degree in school administration from YSU along the way.

Her last two years have been at the new East High School but most of her career was in The Rayen School, now gone as part of a district school-rebuilding program.

She was also a coach, one of the first women head coaches in the city when she was named basketball coach in 1976. She later also coached track.

“We went to state so many times,” she recalled, noting her track teams also won the city title eight or nine times.

Her bond with Rayen remains strong. “It’s been like home. I began to see the children of the children I taught,” she said.

When Rayen slipped into academic emergency, it was Williams who called for a strong focus on literacy, a move she said helped the school advance from academic watch to continuous improvement on its state report card in two years.

Now at East, with that school in academic emergency, Williams is again pushing for a focus on literacy.

“The staff rallied behind me. The scores are improving and will reach continuous improvement or effective soon,” she predicted.

A big challenge in her career was the transition into the new East, bringing children from The Rayen School and half of those from Woodrow Wilson High School into a new environment.

Some predicted a lot of problems, but Williams didn’t share that worry.

“I didn’t see the anxiety that the community seemed to have,” she said, adding, “It went really well. We really worked to prepare them for the transition.”

Her willingness to help students even extended to housing a couple of them in her home.

Romuald Augustin and Gregory Gerald, two young men from Canada, transferred to the city school system and became friends with Williams’ son, Casey.

She was teaching at Rayen at the time, and the boys eventually moved into her home.

Her students see her as accessible and walk up to her freely with questions and requests.

“We’re going to miss her,” offered De’Asia Daniels, a tenth-grader who stopped to speak with Williams in the East cafeteria.

“I’m coming to your house,” she told Williams, perhaps only half joking.

Williams has always had the tenacity and the guts to take a stand, Webb said, adding that replacing her will be tough.

“She always has a vision that kids get better and better. Henrietta really, really cares about her students. She’s just been a phenomenal educator,” Webb said.

The kids are what she will miss the most. “Even the ones that make you mad,” Williams said. “I call them my babies.”

Michalski said he and others at East will develop, construct and perpetuate a garden and reflecting pond in Williams’ honor in at East.

It will be a living classroom, he said, a place for scientific inquiry, the development of writing skills and even a sanctuary for quiet reflection.

Williams is retiring, but she’ll still be around.

She’ll be working part time with the state High Schools That Work program and has offered to help the district as a temporary administrator when needed, but she’s also eyeing some special projects at East for which she will volunteer.

Development of an in-school suspension program to keep kids involved in school when they have disciplinary issues is one target, she said.

She and retiring East librarian Jocelyn Dabney have a pact to come back and help the school put on some theatrical productions, and Williams said she would also like to see the school grounds and courtyards “really manicured,” a project that could require her to raise some money.