TEACHING BRENTWOOD An Educator’s Lifelong, Sunlit Journey
	September 2005

by Mary Black
Photos by Russell Byrne

I graduated from Brentwood’s Liberty High School in the Class of 1968, and it was a very good year. For example, the current Brentwood elementary school superintendent — and my boss, Doug Adams — was a fellow graduate with me. Maybe the universe really is expanding, like the scientists say, because everything about Brentwood was smaller in 1968 than it is today. You could recognize almost everybody you met on the sidewalk.

Following graduation from Liberty, I attended Mills College and Berkeley. I had been looking forward to getting away from what I thought of as a hick town and can still recall the relief at seeing Brentwood in my rearview mirror. A few years away from Brentwood created a complete attitude adjustment towards my hometown, however. I discovered that the big, fascinating world “out there” didn’t know who I was and I never came to feel about any other place that I was really, in some fundamental sense, at home. I missed the slower pace and the warmth of this community. There’s something special about living in a place where everyone knows your name. When I learned about an opening in the Brentwood Elementary School, I jumped at it and Bill Bristow, himself, hired me to teach fourth grade.

Back to My Roots
I began my time as a Brentwood educator by teaching in the very same classroom where I had sat as a kindergarten student. I had apparently developed some self-confidence over the intervening two-plus decades. As a result, I no longer felt compelled to hide in the closet on my first day in the classroom, as I had done during that long-ago first day as a kindergarten student. Later I was working at Edna Hill School and my desk sat in almost the exact spot where my eighth grade desk had sat. I could shut my eyes and hear Edna Hill, herself, lecturing us.

Even though my return to Brentwood seems a long time ago, Ike Montanez was already working here. Ike was teaching at Garin School and running a nationally acclaimed bilingual program, as part of a federal program that focused on Spanish and English speaking students sharing culture with each other. Ike became a mentor who taught me a lot about teaching kids. He later became principal, then a school board member, and continues to volunteer at the Village Resource Center and in schools.

Ike was just one of a number of people who really gave of themselves to make me successful. Bill Bristow, for example, played the “Tuesdays with Morey” role for me. He changed my life. Many others were “there for me” to a remarkable extent when I was getting started. They believed in me; they inspired me to reach my potential.

It was exciting to come back. Some things had changed; some things had stayed just the same. I found I could rejoice both in the transformation and the stability that marks this area. I quickly developed into an avid local history buff. I love sharing my memories of Brentwood with children today. You can’t do that unless you really appreciate your community.

I’ve remained working in Brentwood schools ever since I returned — but have had opportunities of viewing public education from many different perspectives. I began, in that fourth grade class, teaching elementary general education, and later teaching math. In a real blast from the past, my own second grade teacher, Jeanne Adams, came out of retirement to help me through that first year. Jeanne Adams just happens to be the mother of my boss, Superintendent Doug Adams, so I’m in a unique situation; if Doug won’t give me what I want, I just go to his mom and she helps him to see the light.

Instructional Development
I did a lot of work developing curriculums and programs to promote math and reading. The district eventually rewarded my work by making me a principal. In fact, they built a school just so I could be principal of it. The actual story is that I became principal of Ron Nunn School when it was still just some concrete footers and wood framing. I had the responsibility of getting the program and people in place by opening day. It’s difficult to imagine now, but Ron Nunn School, at that time was on the edge of urban civilization. No houses were to be seen. Apple orchards surrounded the school.

When people would ask me, “How do you get to Ron Nunn?” I would tell them, “Just drive to the end of the civilization. When you drop off the end of the asphalt, back up ten yards. That’s us.”

Later I became principal of Edna Hill during another period of transition. We were reconfiguring district grade levels and were going to reopen the facility as a school for grades 5-6. The Edna Hill School reconfiguration presented a real challenge. We were pioneering something that none of us had even heard of before. We were bringing teachers from all the schools in the district to teach together in this one institution. We were blazing an unmarked trail since the school wasn’t really going to be an elementary school, nor was it going to be a middle school.

We could have approached that unstructured challenge with dismay, because there were no guidelines to tell us what to do. We turned that obstacle into a highway, however, and waded right into the project with great enthusiasm over the fact that we could do anything we wanted. The Edna Hill conversion presented me with the greatest educational challenge of my career. I had to put all the pieces of that complicated puzzle together, and get it right by first bell on opening day. The job was made much easier by the fact that I had a great staff. The staff, teachers, and students actually ended up melding together into a superb educational community. I have great memories of that first frantic, yet awesome year.

Once the program was in place, we continued innovations at Edna Hill. For example, one year we loaded all 600 students into busses and hauled them to our first Environmental Camp. Julie Dooley headed that up and molded it into what it is today.

Preserving Educational Quality in the Face of Explosive Growth
It is no secret that our booming growth in Brentwood is exerting a lot of pressures on infrastructure, including schools. Ever since I’ve been in the district we’ve continually been scrambling to build new schools and to recruit new teachers. The elementary district needed to create a separate curriculum department as a result of the growth — ensuring that quality remains constant throughout the processes of the constantly increasing number of our students, classrooms, and schools.

My current role includes managing curriculum improvement for grades K-8. We’re charged with the responsibility of ensuring that we have the appropriate curriculum in place. We also do staff development, which often puts me in the role of being a “teacher of teachers.” We support new teachers through BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment), which is a statewide program providing new teachers with coaching and support to help them make a successful start in teaching our kids. Working with teachers is the most fun part of my job.

One of the most rewarding parts of the educational process is seeing the whole child and I’ve found that over-emphasis on standardized tests can limit your focus in helping the child in every area. Test results are only one tool in dealing with a child’s education. We design educational programs and curriculum modules to meet children where they are. Some children focus on music and art, for example. Others focus on humanities. Science is a passion for other children. We need to design educational processes to serve all of them.

The teachers and we who staff the school district offices can’t do the whole job on our own; we’re developing resources that come from the larger community. Funding for arts education, for example, is always a big problem. We’re working with the Arts Commission and the Arts Society to provide students with exposure to the fine arts and hands-on creative experiences of their own.

Bringing Art to the Classrooms
We have two district art instructors that rotate among the six elementary schools plus the art teachers at the middle school. The Arts Society is also supporting art education through funding the Art Docent program, which is a great example of school and community working together. Recently I was sitting behind Jan Melloni at a School Board meeting. She was representing the Arts Society and had a check in her hand from the society to support Arts Education. The Board President said to her, “Mary will be glad to accept your check and will make sure that the money is used effectively.”

Mary Hannigan and Regina McCarthy were the two who got the Art Docent program started. They began with lessons called Art of the Masters. Mary and Regina initially began the program in the two schools where their own children attended, but the program has since spread to all six elementary schools. Each school has a lead art volunteer. Children are getting exposed to art, but an additional payoff is that parents with a passion for the arts are utilizing that in support of children’s education. Now we are also integrating the art instruction with “standard” school curriculum in subjects such as math and history.

Bill Weber, Curator of the Arts Commission Gallery, Jan Melloni with the Arts Society, the parents in the Arts Docent Program, and teachers are all working together with the schools to make things happen for the kids. Local businesses are getting involved as well. Target and Mervyns, for example, have given grants to the Art Docent program both years of the program’s existence. Other citizens in the community participate in the Society’s annual fundraiser dinner and auction.

If you want a snapshot showing the status of art in our local schools, stop by our annual student art show at the Arts Commission Gallery at the Business and Technology Incubator, which we run every spring. This year, on May 4, punch and cookies replaced the usual wine and cheese reception in honor of the student artists. The evening turned into a memorable and joyful celebration, as kids brought parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, and cousins to see their art. The young painters were so proud to be there as featured artists and to show off their work!

The Arts Commission also featured an artist from Maine, Jules Vitali, who demonstrated his unique art vision, based upon transforming ordinary Styrofoam cups into works of art, which he calls Styrogami. Besides meeting with young artists at the art gallery reception, Jules went to each elementary school where he presented his intriguing vision of art, and his passion to promote conservation.

I love to see things like that happen — teachers, parents, school administrators, and businesses working together for the noble purpose of serving the next generation. I feel so fortunate to be working in Brentwood where that kind of synergy continually takes place on many different levels — all the way from parents, on one hand, who are so anxious to help and support us up to the City that is doing things like building joint use facilities with us and funding the Village Resource Center, which provides such services as community outreach, and works with schools to provide after school tutoring.

A Place to Thrive, Grow, and Learn
These are interesting times in education — sometimes in the sense that the Great Depression was an interesting time for the stock exchange. But in spite of all the cutbacks and criticisms, we’re having some good times in Brentwood. Morale is high in our schools. I continually see teachers who are working “above and beyond the call of duty.” If I ever need to get remotivated in what I’m doing, all I have to do is go to one of the schools, walk down the hallways, and just bask for a little while in what’s happening around me. I love my job! Who wouldn’t love the job of seeing kids smiling every day and working with teachers, who really are dedicated to their profession and to their jobs?

I’ve always loved kids and am continually amazed at what they can come up with. Children can bring a smile to my heart. When I was principal at Ron Nunn I always wanted to turn a patch of dirt outside the library into a little reading garden. I never was able to pull that off during my tenure as principal, but after I left, the teachers and parents got together to design a beautiful little reading garden that they named “Mary’s Garden.” One day the first graders were talking about Mary’s Garden during a music class. “That was named for Mary Black,” the music teacher said. “Do you know who Mary Black is?” “Yes,” one of the students replied, “she is the mother of Jesus.”

There’s something special about Brentwood Schools. There’s a focus here on making our institutions humane places where adults and children can thrive together. Whenever we bring some issue before the school board, their bottom line is always found in the answer to the question “Is this a good thing for kids?”

We want our test scores to improve, but above and beyond that we want our children to develop skills that will enable them to perform at their highest potential so that as many options might be opened to them, as possible. That’s why we focus a lot of energy in providing electives. Members of the school board, teachers, administrators, and parents — we’re all reading off the same page. We all want the best for the students.

We’re all carrying out traditions and participating in an educational culture that stretches back into the past. The reason I returned to Brentwood is because I felt good about the people who had been around me while I was growing up. I had a sense that so many of us have of wanting to give something back to the community that, when I was a child, had given me so much. I asked myself the question, “What can I give back?” Then I asked another question, “What did the community give me?” The answer is that the community actually helped shape me into the individual that I became. Brentwood played a big role in making me who I am. So that’s what I’m giving back. I’m giving myself to my community, my job, and to the astonishing teachers and students that I work with. Giving myself, with my personal skills and abilities, is a gift that has been joyful in the giving.