Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School Principal Melanie Sigler was promoted to the position from Assistant Prinicipal in 2008. This year she won the Georgia National Distinguished Middle Level Principal of the Year award. Photo by Nicholas Byrne.
By KAYA POLLACK – Staff Writer
Freshman Kaya Pollack sat down with Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School Principal Melanie Sigler to talk about her recent win as the Georgia National Distinguished Middle Level Principal of the Year.
Kaya Pollack: Did you know you were going to get this award?
Melanie Sigler: I did not know I was getting the award, I had been nominated for the award. I had to go through the process of filling out the application, I had to get letters written by a teacher, a fellow administrator, my supervisor (Dr. Phil Lanoue, Superintendent of Clarke County Schools) and a parent. I had submitted all the applications after I was nominated. I had not heard anything back (from the organization) and if I’m honest with you, I really had kind of forgotten about it. It was a complete shock when I walked into the (Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School) gym and they had come to present (the award) and had done everything behind my back.
KP: Who was there to present you with the Principal of the Year Award?
MS: Dr. Bob Heaberlin, he is the Executive Director of the Georgia Association of Middle School Principals, and let me just tell you, the award when you read it from the paper of the press release, it says it is presented by the National Association of Elementary School Principals, which there is a national organization for elementary school principals, but there is also a national organization for secondary school principals, and secondary is kind of middle school and high school. The Georgia Association of Elementary and Middle (schools) are under the umbrella of the National Association of Elementary School Principals. So you will see both of them on the award, but I am the middle level winner for Georgia that will go on to compete against the other states. Hal Beaver is the Georgia Association of Elementary School Teachers, and he came. Dr. Bob Heaberlin was there to actually present me with the award and then another gentleman came who also has been a past winner who is now on the board, and was on the board that nominated me to win. Several people from the organization were there.
KP: What does this award mean? Do you have to complete a certain amount of activities as a principal? Do you need to have certain characteristics to win this award?
MS: At the bottom of the press release, it tells you exactly what they are looking for. Basically, they want principals who have made a difference at their school, changed the academic environment in their school. They want someone who is actively involved in professional learning and bettering the educational environment. My obligation now is I will attend the national convention at Long Beach, Ca. in July and then in October I will go to Washington, D.C. for a two-day event and we will be honored, and they will have a big celebration and all of us will be presented with the award and the pin for the award. It’s a big deal, it’s a black tie affair. It’s very exciting.
KP: What were your feelings when you received this award. Seeing from the Athens Banner-Herald page, it looks like you were just overtaken by emotions. What were your thoughts and feelings on this award?
MS: I was shocked that my staff was able to pull it off and surprise me like they did. I am usually in the know of things and the fact that they were able to plan such a big event and all the details going into it and what they did, I absolutely was shocked that they were able to get away with it. As I said before, I’m usually in the know of things and I pick up on everything and they surprised me. To win the award for me, for me, I don’t think any one person ever wins an award for anything they do solely on their own. I know at BHL I have an amazing administrative team, I have amazing teachers the staff the students the parents and we have amazing support from the board office– Dr. Lanoue, Dr. Mark Tavernier, Ernest Hardaway and Tim Jarboe, all the people at the Board Office give us so much good support. Honestly I’m getting the recognition for Clarke County, BHL, and myself. It’s really about what we are doing in Clarke County, the good things we are doing, the risks that we have taken to change things. I just feel like it’s not my award, it’s our award. Our school award, our district award and I am just overwhelmed that I am the one who gets to be the face and name (of it) and honestly it’s just everybody’s because we did all of this together. I was just lucky enough to be the leader of what’s going on. I feel very blessed.
KP: What do you hope this award brings for not only your future, but the future of BHL and the county?
MS: I think this just highlights the great work we have been doing. We have been doing great work for years and we have been doing very focused work. We have high expectations, but now it actually is just getting our name out there and showing the great work we have been doing and making people look. I think that it will bring a lot of visitors to our building, I think that people will want to come and see what we are doing in action, they’ll want to see it. Seeing is believing and coming to see what we are doing. (BHL) has always been very eye-opening to visitors and we have had a lot of visitors over the past couple of years because of the one-to-one initiative (one computer to every child), the International Baccalaureate Programme because of a lot of great things we are doing. I think it’s just really getting our name out there and getting recognition that Clarke County deserves because there are unbelievable best practices going on going in Clarke County and it is just exciting to share it with the rest of the state and country.
I taught at Clarke Central for many years before I came to BHL as an assistant principal. I have many many good friends there (Laura Ambrose) orchestrated the guest list of who all was invited to the event and the reception party hosted afterwards. She invited a lot of my friends from Clarke Central High School, and I have to say that was one of the most meaningful things to me. There were two meaningful things that happened that day. First my parents were invited and I was really excited about that because I love to share my success with them, but also to share that with my friends from Clarke Central meant the world to me. When you move from being a teacher to an administrator, you’re not able to really have those really close friendships on staff, so I really treasured the friendships I have and made at Clarke Central and how they’ve gone on and supported me. Those are the things that make it really fun to get the recognition, is to share it with all of them and the people that really care about you and want to celebrate it with you. It’s really cool to me for you to interview me, with you being associated with Clarke Central because I have such great memories there, (memories of) teaching at Clarke Central and making good friends there. It’s really important to me that I have kept those great relationships.
