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New school is a tribute to longtime counselor

Nancy Bartels made her mark in counseling and by fighting the academic achievement gap. A new school will be named for her.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published October 30, 2005

NEW TAMPA - It took just one quick School Board vote to name the new Live Oak middle school after longtime counselor and teacher Nancy Bartels, who died of a virus suddenly and unexpectedly in May at age 57.

The honor, board members said, was well-deserved but unfortunate.

Mrs. Bartels' husband of nearly 34 years, Freedom High School principal Richard Bartels, couldn't agree more.

His wife, he said, worked to eliminate the academic achievement gap between races long before it became in vogue. She enrolled students with special education needs in her award-winning choirs well before the federal government required inclusion.

Administrators would put students who had failed everywhere else into her classes, where they would succeed.

"She set her standards high and challenged her kids to attain that," Mr. Bartels said. "I am amazed so many people came up to me after the board meeting and said how fitting it was to name a school after someone who dedicated her life to middle school youngsters."

He expected the new school to have an excellent counseling staff and a stellar music program in recognition of the things most important to his wife, who began her career as a choral teacher before entering counseling.

Barbara Ramsey, a teacher at Newsome High School, said she was especially pleased that her longtime friend's name would go on a middle school.

"People don't have a lot of respect for middle schools, and Nancy did," Ramsey said. "She was such an advocate for middle schools."

Mrs. Bartels, who lived in Valrico, spent much of her career at Dowdell, Buchanan and Tomlin middle schools. As a counseling supervisor, she worked most closely with middle school counselors, though she would help anyone who called.

Widely known and respected, Ramsey said, Mrs. Bartels was so low-key that the fuss over naming the school "would probably embarrass her."

Joyce Saunders, Mrs. Bartels' secretary for nearly 11 years, thought her friend and boss would be humbled by the situation.

"She was never one to think that she was anybody," Saunders said.

Saunders remembered Mrs. Bartels as someone who quietly touched peoples' lives, who never saw the bad in anyone. While the two traveled together in New York, Saunders said, Mrs. Bartels bought pink rhinestone-encrusted glasses with rose-colored lenses.

She'd pull them out during gripe sessions, or when others got negative.

School district chief of staff Ken Otero recalled Mrs. Bartels as one who would find a way to help students succeed, but also had an ability to "work with the grownups, too." People felt at ease in her presence, Mr. Bartels said, because she wasn't awed by a person's station in life.

Mrs. Bartels loved music; she played guitar and keyboard, and enjoyed Beethoven as much as the Beatles, her husband said.

She'd always listen to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack on trips with Ramsey to the outlet mall in Ellenton. And she knew all the words to Louie, Louie, that garbled garage band hit that seems to have no words at all.

"She always said to me that's what she wanted on her headstone, that she knew the words to Louie, Louie," Saunders said, laughing.

The Bartels had planned to retire and travel together at the end of the school year. They have one son, Robert, an Orlando lawyer who still calls himself "a teacher's kid."

Nancy Bartels Middle School is scheduled to open in August.

-- Jeffrey S. Solochek can be reached at 813 269-5304 or solochek@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 29, 2005, 09:48:04]