At Clark Elementary School, Anna Brown wants to build "a professional learning community" to help teachers and children.
By LOGAN MABE
Published April 11, 2004
WEST MEADOWS - Ever since leaving college with her education degree, Anna Brown has been on a mission.
"I definitely believe that a quality leader can affect the lives of every child in the building and bring out the best in every single teacher," said Brown, the newly appointed principal of Clark Elementary School.
"And that's my mission, building a professional learning community with the principal being the lead learner. That's what I do every day. Every decision I make is based on what's right for kids."
Brown began her duties at Clark on Wednesday morning after the School Board approved her promotion Tuesday night. At 35, she is part of a recent wave of younger educators tapped to lead schools in north Tampa.
A 1990 graduate of the University of Florida, Brown has been on the fast track ever since.
She came to the district that year as a teacher at Gorrie Elementary School. Because of family obligations in California, Brown left Tampa at the end of the school year and taught middle school in San Francisco for a year.
Brown returned to Tampa at the beginning of the 1992 school year as a teacher at Buckhorn Elementary School. The next year, she transferred to a teaching position at Tampa Bay Boulevard Elementary School, where she stayed until 2000.
After a short stint as an administrative resource teacher at Chiaramonte Elementary School, Brown was appointed assistant principal at Twin Lakes Elementary School. That's where she got her first taste of leadership.
"Assistant principals do everything," Brown said. "It's probably one of the biggest jobs in the district. They kind of do a little bit of everything - curriculum, discipline, textbooks, planning, meeting with parents, instructional leadership, coordinating activities. The assistant principal and the principal work very closely together so that one balances the other."
That balance was one factor in easing Brown's transition from first mate to captain as she moved from Twin Lakes to Clark.
"You don't really leave one place immediately," she said. "I did not pack up one thing. I brought with me a notebook and what I needed, but I'll still be working out of both worlds for a little while. No one can leave a job like that undone."
Witness her predecessor, Valerie Orihuela, who recently assumed an administrative job at school district headquarters.
"Even though she had moved downtown, she continued to work in both worlds, and she did a fabulous job of taking care of everything," Brown said. "There are no loose ends to tie up."
Although Brown's rise to the top of her profession may seem sudden, it is something she has prepared for tirelessly since becoming a teacher.
She signed up for every professional development program the district offered, even attending principal preparation classes on Saturdays. On those rare moments when Brown can get away from her educational duties, she said, she reads and goes fishing on Lake Carroll near her home.
Originally from the Panhandle town of Crestview, she is drawn to the water.
"Whenever I have a stressful day, I jump in the bass boat and get on the lake," she said. "It's something I've always done. I grew up a country girl, and my father and I used to go fishing all the time."
Her first day at Clark, thankfully, was not one of those stressful days.
"I received a very, very warm welcome and was able to visit every classroom and meet every child," she said. "And I concluded the day by meeting each parent that was in the car line so I could say hello."
- Logan D. Mabe can be reached at 269-5304 or at mabe@sptimes.com
