Tuesday, May 29, 2001

The Natchez Democrat

During a special program for sixth-graders this year, Principal

Carla Evers read the following proverb.

&uot;The seeds of the day are best planted in the first hour.&uot;

At Morgantown Elementary School, Carla Evers and faculty and

staff strive to live up to this proverb &uot;because this is

the first hour of the children’s lives,&uot; Evers said.

Evers served as resource teacher/assistant principal at Frazier

Primary School and as assistant principal at Morgantown Elementary

School before becoming its principal last fall.

During that short time, she earned the honor of being named

the administrator of the year for the Natchez-Adams School District

– an honor she found hard to believe at first.

Without her fellow administrators, teachers, staff and parents

and the support and inspiration of her family and district leaders

such as Joyce Johnson, Thelma Newsome and Evelyn Smith she knows

it would not have been possible.

&uot;Even if you are the best athlete on the team you can’t

play by yourself and that’s how I feel about the principalship,&uot;

she said. &uot;A principal can’t walk around with that &uot;I&uot;

mentality.&uot;

Evers began her education career in 1991 and began working

for the Natchez-Adams School District about seven years ago.

As an administrator she strives to practice objectivity, good

management, good communication skills and to develop trust and

openness with faculty, staff, parents and especially students.

&uot;I just want to hear what the child has to say,&uot;

said Evers, quick to add that this does not mean they will not

be punished for misbehaving.

A good principal also needs to know about and be willing to

do anyone’s job down to cleaning the floors, Evers said.

It’s an &uot;awesome responsibility&uot; and Evers said she

is thankful to have the help of other administrators in the district.

As a principal &uot;what you do affects more than just you,&uot;

Evers said.

Her impact reaches to the 1186 students who attended Morgantown

Elementary School this year and the school’s 135 teachers and

staff members.

&uot;They’re not working for me. I’ve made that clear from

the beginning,&uot; Evers said, about the school’s employees.

&uot;We’re here for the children.&uot;

The employees are already making plans for next year which

will include continuation of a grant from the Barksdale Reading

Institute and the implementation of two new reading programs one

of which makes use of music to teach language arts and parts of

speech.

School officials have also decided to move the sixth-graders

to their own section of the building next year, which is closer

to the office and will be called the sixth-grade learning academy.