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City People

In a class by herself

West Shore Elementary principal Harriet Foundas has spent 30 years as the face of her school.

By ELISABETH DYE
Published March 3, 2006

PORT TAMPA - A third-grader has been caught stealing and a class of students are sweltering, even though the thermostat is set at 72 degrees.

A parent needs to speak with a teacher. Now. The problem is, she's teaching a class.

"You want a challenge?" principal Harriet Foundas asks turning to her secretary, Susie Blankenship, on a recent Friday. "You want to go up there for five minutes?"

Blankenship agrees to go as Foundas pours herself a cup of coffee, tops it off with almond-flavored cream and sends her assistants out with directions.

"You don't really come up for air much," Foundas says. "Every day's a challenge."

Foundas came to the West Shore school in 1976. She holds the longest reign as principal at a single school in Hillsborough County.

"You think of West Shore and you think of Harriet Foundas," says Valerie Orihuela, the district's manager of South Tampa's principals. "She knows all the children, the families, the community. This is her baby."

West Shore is a small school by Hillsborough's standards, with about 390 students. Working-class homes in the Port Tampa neighborhood are coming down for condominiums and minimansions. Last year, about 80 students left when Westshore Mobile Home Park closed.

The staff expects enrollment to surge in the next five years. But for now, Foundas knows most students by name. Her former students come back and ask, "Do you remember me?" Usually, she does.

She knows the Lopez twins on stage in the cafeteria recently singing about clown fish and rocking their arms to the lyrics: baby beluga in the deep blue sea. And she knows their mother, Vicki Sue Lopez, who was in fourth grade when Foundas came to the West Shore school.

As a student, Lopez remembers Foundas peeking into her classroom and the deep respect the students held for her.

As she watched her sons singing on stage, Lopez glanced at Foundas, bopping to the beat.

"I looked over at her and she's beaming. She's just so proud of her school and her children," said Lopez, who stayed in the area so her four children would also attend West Shore.

Assistant principal Bill Smith attended West Shore as a child, before Foundas came.

"She's plugged in to the community," he said. "She has more resources than other principals."

Despite high poverty and minority rates, the school consistently earns A and B scores from the state. Volunteers tutor students, and local businesses help. The Dunkin' Donuts on Gandy Boulevard donates treats for students who show the character of the month.

Although district officials often shuffle principals, Foundas hasn't wanted to leave.

Over winter break, crews removed the blue carpet in the hall and polished the terrazzo floors. A schoolwide renovation is under way, and Foundas would like to stay for at least another year to see the results.

She pauses in the hallway for a hug from first-grader Samantha Stone, whose mother, Marsha Stone, is co-president of the PTA.

"The thing that strikes me the most about her is what a motivator she is," Stone said. "She motivates people who don't even know they have it in them to reach a little further."

One of those people is Evadney Smiley, who started working in the school cafeteria in 1984. One day Foundas offered her a job in the classroom, as a teacher's aide, after seeing how Smiley worked with children.

"I was shocked," said Smiley, who took the job in 1990. "I didn't think I could work in the classroom. I even said, "Why me?' "

Foundas surrounds herself with these stories. Jody Couturiaux was a teacher's aide until Foundas encouraged her to take a test to become the school's data processing clerk.

"I've always tried to promote from within," Foundas said. "It all comes down to helping people to be the best they can."

It's a lesson she learned years ago when she was a teacher at Tinker Elementary School, where she later became principal. Then-principal Winifred Horton passed duties to Foundas, grooming her for bigger things.

"I'm not sure if she saw a spark in me," Foundas said. "But she motivated me."

- Elisabeth Dyer can be reached at edyer@sptimes.com or 813 226-3321.

JOB: Principal at West Shore Elementary School.

HOME: Palma Ceia, where she lives with a poodle named Brandy and a terrier named Sweetie.

FAMILY: Son Scott Foundas, a film critic for the Los Angeles Times, and mother Faye Aronson, who lives in Tampa.

TENURE: She has been West Shore's principal for 30 years, the longest reign for a single Hillsborough County school. Before West Shore, she served as principal at Tinker and Gorrie elementary schools.

ON BEING PRINCIPAL: "An administrator is a big glorified teacher," she says.

AFTER RETIRING: Plans to enjoy reading and lunches with friends.

SIDELINE: She votes for her favorites on American Idol and once sang on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour.

[Last modified March 2, 2006, 13:56:08]