DNRonline : Toasting The Teachers
5/30/14, 7:55 AM
TOASTING THE TEACHERS
Superintendent Applauds Division Accomplishments At Annual Ceremony
Posted: May 30, 2014
By KASSONDRA CLOOS
HARRISONBURG — Harrisonburg City Public
Schools, in spite of many challenges, can be proud of
several significant accomplishments of recent years,
Superintendent Scott Kizner says.
On Thursday, Kizner ticked off some of the division’s
biggest successes during Harrisonburg Education
Foundation’s annual Breakfast of Champions. The
breakfast honors teachers of the year and scholarship
recipients.
Kizner said advanced-diploma rates for limited
English proficiency students, low-income students,
and Hispanic students are on the rise. Meanwhile, the
division has experienced similar gains in advanced
placement course participation, he added.
Charles Chenault (left), a Harrisonburg High
School graduate and the vice mayor, kisses the
recipient of the Retired Outstanding Educator
Award, Louise Cash Whitmer, during the
Harrisonburg Education Foundation’s Breakfast
of Champions on Thursday morning. (Photos by
Nikki Fox / DN-R)
Additionally, the school division’s on-time graduation
rate regularly exceeds the state average of 89 percent.
Harrisonburg High School’s graduation rate was 90.5
percent last year.
Still, Kizner said he doesn’t mind taking extra time to
ensure students learning English as a second language
graduate with an education of substance, rather than
pushing them through in four years for the sake of
maintaining the graduation rate.
Harrisonburg City Schools Superintendent Scott
Kizner gives the state of the schools address during
Harrisonburg Education Foundation’s Breakfast
of Champions on Thursday.
“In Harrisonburg, we’re not going to lose a lot of sleep
if students graduate in five or six years,” he said. “You
cannot expect children 16 or 17 or even 13 or 14 …
who come to our country not speaking a single word of
English, leaving horrendous conditions at times, and ask them to sit next to my daughter, who
graduated from Harrisonburg High School … and ask all of them to finish at the same time.”
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DNRonline : Toasting The Teachers
5/30/14, 7:55 AM
Ultimately, the goal is to be child-centered more so than adult-friendly, Kizner said, adding that the
division doesn’t make decisions in the best interest of adults.
“Our mission and our job is for the older people to do whatever’s required to make sure that the
little people are getting the best educations possible,” he said.
The division’s other big achievements include implementing programs in science, technology,
engineering and math, or STEM fields.
Harrisonburg has STEM programs in its elementary, middle and high schools, as well as a fine arts
academy at HHS.
The district also won the Wells Fargo Cup for Academics for the fourth year in a row.
Officials say the accomplishments are to the credit of staff members, who were the focus of
Thursday’s breakfast.
Former teacher Louise Cash Whitmer was honored as the 2014 Retired Outstanding Educator.
Whitmer, 90, taught in Harrisonburg for 25 years before retiring as guidance director at HHS in
1985. She also taught elsewhere in Virginia and in Georgia.
“I was so happy in the classroom and in counseling,” she said. “And I tried so hard to honor each
child in my classroom, regardless of his status in life.”
Whitmer has spent much of her time in retirement traveling with family.
She and her late husband, Herbert, spent a lot of time visiting their daughters, who have lived all
over the United States and beyond.
Whitmer said she was grateful for her family’s support throughout her teaching career, which
obviously influenced them.
She paid her husband’s way through college while working at Bridgewater High School, and he later
became a professor at James Madison University.
Her daughters also pursued careers as educators.
Whitmer said her career had been a most gratifying one.
“I remember the students,” Whitmer said. “I see them all over, everywhere, and most of the time I
get a hug from them. They were so eager to learn, and so easy to work with. And so loved by me.”
Contact Kassondra Cloos at 574-6290 or [email protected]
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