Roxboro Community School in the News

Kennington to Lead New Charter School - 4/29/06

By PHYLISS BOATWRIGHT, C-T Staff Writer

The Roxboro Community School board of directors this week appointed Sam Kennington as principal of the new charter school for middle and high school students that is scheduled to open Aug. 25.

Kennington, the executive director of the Roxboro Uptown Development Corp., is to assume official duties as RCS principal on Monday, May 1.
Kennington, a Person County native and retired educator, said he was excited about taking the helm of the charter school and working with the RCS board. He also looks forward, he said, to offering Person County parents and children an alternative in their educational experience.

Kennington emphasized, “I have absolutely nothing against Person County Schools. They do a wonderful job educating children. But, it is also wonderful to have an alternative in Roxboro.

“Those students and parents who want a small school, with one academic strand and no sports, have an option,” he said.

Donald Long, chairman of the RCS board of directors, announced Kennington’s appointment at Bethel Hill Charter School Friday, during that school’s annual barbecue fund-raiser.

“We are pleased, ecstatic and excited to announce that we have someone who is local, has experience in education and has demonstrated ability to lead a school,” Long said, speaking for the board. Kennington, he added, “is also open to new ideas and to finding new ways to challenge students.”

Mark Phillips, a member of the RCS board and the Roxboro City Council, said earlier Friday, “The county is awfully lucky to have somebody of (Kennington’s) caliber and background. I think teachers, students and parents will be delighted, pleased and happy” with the RCS board’s choice of principal.

“I’m very proud,” Phillips continued, “to be sending my child to a school where [Kennington] is principal, and I think everyone else, once they get to know him, will feel the same way.”

Long said the selection committee spent time “in prayerful deliberation about the right candidate” before choosing Kennington. When he was chosen from among several candidates, Long said the board was impressed that Kennington “knew our material, our vision and mission and was enthused about carrying it out.”

Kennington said he was honored to be working with the RCS board, which he said was made up of committed people who genuinely care about the children in Person County.

He also looks forward to bringing educational opportunities to Person County students and giving back to the community that gave him so many happy memories of childhood and school days, he said.

After attending what was then known as Central School in Roxboro, Kennington went to Earl Bradsher and graduated from Roxboro High School in 1964. He received his undergraduate degree in business and teaching certificate from East Carolina University in 1968.

Later that year, Kennington went on staff at Walter Williams High School in Burlington as a distributive education/marketing teacher. After two years at Walter Williams, he moved to Cummings High School in Burlington, where he took DECA students to state and national competitions, winning state awards.

He said working with the DECA Club showed him, early on in his career, that “kids have got to be involved” in school activities. “That creates ownership” of their school, he said.

Kennington’s first child was born in 1970, he said, while he was teaching in the Burlington City Schools district. Knowing he had a family to support and wanting to buy a home, he went to North Carolina A&T State University and began working toward his master’s degree. At the time, he laughed, he intended to get a master’s in driver’s education so he could teach year round, thus earning more to support his family. But, after working a while as a driver’s ed teacher, he said, “I thought I had a brain tumor,” but found it was the stress associated with the job that gave him endless headaches.

In July 1973, he was offered a job at Statesville High School, however, where he would “supervise,” he said, the tennis team. Having never played tennis himself, Kennington said, “I agreed to be a supervisor, but not a coach.”

He said that position turned out to be a good learning experience, though, that “solidified for me how important it is for a teacher to get to know the kids.” He now has fond memories, he said, of his DECA students, his tennis team and even his stint as a driver’s ed teacher.

After two years as teacher and tennis supervisor, Kennington was named assistant principal of Statesville High, and two years later he was promoted to principal, a job he would keep for 15 years.

He said his time in administration made him “believe in strong discipline, but that you have got to listen to the child to find out the problem and work on it.” He said his approach to discipline, while firm, involved a lot of one-on-one counseling with students and parents.

“A kid has to know that he or she did wrong,” he said, “and that there are consequences, but that you still love them and will help them.”

He said one thing that attracted him to the RCS principalship was the charter school’s plan to offer “a strong guidance system that will walk students through and help them” get the most of their time in school.

After his tenure as principal at Statesville High, Kennington moved into the district office as director of vocational education, where he served for seven years, until his retirement in 1999.

Kennington and his wife, Cathy, also a retired educator, moved back to Person County, to his grandparents’ farm in the Hester’s Store community. The Kenningtons have three adult children and four grandchildren.

Upon his return to Person County, Kennington said he wanted to give back to the community that had been such an important part of his childhood. He has served as executive director of the RUDC since July 1999.

That position, he said, gave him new perspective on the private sector after spending the bulk of his professional life in public education.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed it,” he said of his time with RUDC. “The board and I accomplished a lot of things and I was able to renew a lot of old acquaintances and had the pleasure of meeting lots of people who are new to Roxboro.”

Part of his duties at RUDC were to work toward preserving historic buildings in the Uptown area. To be able to work with RCS on renovating the old Roxboro Cotton Mills plant off of Depot Street is like a continuation of that effort, he said.

“Walking in there today,” he said of the building, which is under renovation, “I see what it’s going to be and how proud every citizen can be when it is renovated. It is an outstanding building.”

Kennington added, “The school will be a tremendous asset to the community, to Roxboro and to Person County.”

The first item on his agenda now, said Kennington, is to hire an administrative assistant and then to begin recruiting faculty for RCS.

“I look forward to putting together a good staff,” he said, adding that he hopes to offer, through the flexibility of a charter school, full-time, part-time and flex-time faculty positions that will entice teachers with young families and retired teachers.

The RCS telephone number is 597-0020. Kennington will maintain an office, for now, at the Person County Partnership for Children office complex on Main Street.