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Principal is finalist for award
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Dr. Robert Walls, principal of Campbell Elementary School, chats with Hector Lopez, 9, and Faith Fetty, 10, at the end of a recent school day. Walls is a finalist for the 2012 Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators Distinguished Principal Award.
By Jeanne Starmack
Campbell
It takes under- standing from dedicated people to help a child learn.
That child who sits alone in the school cafeteria while others effortlessly cluster in friendly groups all around him is going to be stressed.
Without someone who understands, says Robert Walls, principal of Campbell Elementary School, the child might focus more on that stress than on learning.
And what about that child who goes home for the weekend to a household that struggles to afford food? She might have to come to her classroom hungry Monday, her physical hunger interfering with her hunger for knowledge.
That child who lags behind in reading needs some individual attention — and plenty of understanding.
The child who excels in math deserves to be rewarded and encouraged toward even more excellent work.
A school is better if parents are involved there.
And the more exposure students have to the arts, the more enriched and well-rounded they’ll become.
Walls, who has been principal at Campbell Elementary since 2005, understands all this.
He began his career as a high-school teacher in 1991 at The Rayen School in Youngstown but learned to love the younger set during research for his doctoral dissertation on early childhood education while an assistant principal at Maplewood Elementary School in Trumbull County.
“Oh yeah, I loved working with the kids. It was great,” he said earlier this week.
That love of kids led his staff to nominate him for the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators 2012 Distinguished Principal Award, and he learned in February he is one of four finalists out of 17 original nominees from throughout Ohio. He will learn if he was chosen May 1.
The OAESA and the Foundation to Advance Childhood Education recognize two distinguished principals each year.
This year, one elementary principal will be chosen from the four finalists; no middle-school principals were nominated.
The winner will be given the award June 19 or 20 during the OAESA Professional Conference and Trade Show in Sandusky.
From there, the winner will go to Washington, D.C., in October to represent Ohio in the National Distinguished Principal Program.
Walls has had to answer many questions for the award committee about his educational philosophies and the plans he has for the school.
“I know where we came from,” he said. When he arrived in 2005, the school was in academic watch in the state report cards.
He and the staff got together and focused on literacy.
“We developed our teachers professionally with literacy training,” he said.
The school also began offering programs for kids who needed help.
In the first year, he said, “we turned it around.”
The school’s rating went from “academic watch” to “effective.” The performance index rose from a 72 to a 94, and the school met Adequate Yearly Progress.
The school was rated “excellent” four years in a row, then fell again to “effective” last year.
Walls said the state raised expectations last year. But the school still made AYP.
It’s not only academic needs the school addresses. Children who need food take home backpacks filled by Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley every weekend. The program serves 150 students.
Walls said his grant- writing skills, which he first used at Rayen to begin the Jr. ROTC Program, have been valuable.
The school was awarded a $300,000 Swanston Grant last year for after-school programs that include a counselor for troubled kids; an anti-bullying program; Project Kind, which teaches kindergarten kids to be sociable; a summer program for academic strugglers; a program that readies kids for kindergarten; and Camp Challenge, which has activities and counseling.
Walls wrote a grant for a school-resource officer, and he has solicited funds for annual trips to the Western Reserve Ballet and stage shows at Westminster College.
“‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ Hillary Clinton said, but it also takes a village to educate a kid,” Walls said.
“It’s all of us together — teamwork,” he said. But he also believes in “the power of one.”
“One more smile, one more minute on task, one more hug, one more pat on the head,” he said.
He’s only one person up for the award. But, he said, he’s representing his whole team.