As October comes to an end, we would like to round out our appreciation of principals with reflections from elementary and middle school staff on their building leaders.
Elementary principals
“As long as I’ve known Ryan Francis, he has been moving. Whether on a field, court, or the ice, he’s in perpetual motion. That shows up daily in his leadership. It’s very difficult to locate him in the building. He’s constantly ‘on the go’ to find students or staff that need an extra hand. He can relate to a lot of students in the building, and that makes them feel special.”
Neal Gross, grade 4 teacher, Maire Elementary School
“Ryan has a very analytical mind and is a great organizer and scheduler. Anything that needs to be organized (the lunch room map, seating chart) he is the one to do it!
“Ryan has been very level headed and patient through all of the ups and downs of construction, and handles any bumps in the road calmly and as quickly as possible.”
Michelle Kramer, computer lab assistant, Maire Elementary School
“First, Ryan is great with all the kids: very attentive and patient. Ryan never misses a teaching moment when with the children and he does spend lots of time with them. Mr. Francis is a tireless educator. I’m proud of our district for the people we have like Ryan.”
Something people might not know about Ryan? “He is a pizza fanatic.”
George Flora, engineer, Maire Elementary School
“I have enjoyed working with Anita Hassan this school year. I appreciate her dedication to keeping the values of working as one family team, that have been previously established at Mason. I respect her high expectations for staff and students and I truly feel that she values everyone and is supportive in helping each individual achieve their goals.”
Brandy Rokicki, social worker, Mason Elementary and Barnes Early Childhood Center
“Last year was my first year here at Monteith and Shelleyann Keelean made this place home for me. Even though it wasn’t a normal school year, Monteith was still a place where students felt safe, loved and supported no matter if they were virtual or hybrid. Every morning she greets students as they arrive at school, which sets the tone for how welcoming Monteith is. If I had to choose three words to describe Shelleyann, they would be: kind, empathetic and passionate. She shows these three traits everyday through the use of her communication with her staff, as well as her students. Shelleyann is a true asset to the Monteith community and her presence here is remarkably cherished.”
Shanelle Mitchell, Title I teacher, Monteith Elementary School
Middle school principals
“The first thing that comes to mind about Rodger Hunwick is that he genuinely cares about everyone and wants them to be successful in their endeavors. The school motto that Rodger actualized is ‘Together We Will’ which comes to life with his leadership throughout the classrooms of Brownell Middle School. ‘Together We Will’ as he supervises each lunch recess, approves requests from teachers to help them get the supplies they need, listens to students who have a problem they need help solving, listens to the creative ideas of staff and students and helps those ideas come to life, reaches out and communicates with all parents with his detailed, weekly Bronco Bulletin and social media postings. He brings fun to the hallways each May 4th as he dresses in his Star Wars gear and the school joins in with the theme of ‘May the Fourth be with you.’ It may interest the community to know that Rodger was a football player at Olivet College. He brings the spirit of teamwork to the school every day.
“Rodger often says ‘Family first,’ as he wants each and every one of us to put our family first when they need us. Rodger is a wonderful family man who treasures his beautiful wife, Michelle, and two lovely daughters, Lilly and Lauren. The Brownell community is blessed to have him as our principal.”
Cheryl Owsen, secretary, Brownell Middle School
“Sara Dirkse is proud to be a Pierce Trojan. She is a team player! She looks out for the welfare of students and staff members alike. When the PTO was looking for someone to get into the dunk tank for our “one and done” fundraiser, the Fun Run, she was all in!”
Ann Lightbody, secretary to the principal, Pierce Middle School
“I've worked with Ken Milch for three years at Hazel Park High and now at Parcells. Although he was hired only days before the school year began, he has made his presence known. He has jumped right in, learning the school culture and getting to know the students, parents and staff. Ken’s door is always open to discuss a problem or an accomplishment, or to share a quirky anecdote. He is a great listener with a calm and thoughtful demeanor that encourages open communication with the staff and students. Ken has truly embraced the theme of One Parcells.”
Gina Hawkins, counselor, Parcells Middle School
Middle school assistant principals
“Holli McNally is a great listener and a kind leader at Brownell Middle School. Her presence helps calm those around her. These attributes serve her well as she helps diffuse situations and leads the students with restorative practices. Students may be in her office a lengthy time working things out, but her magic touch works.
“Holli is phenomenal at thinking outside the box and coming up with innovative solutions to a complex situation, like the detailed planning that comes with standardized testing that she is in charge of as assistant principal. She is a master at crossing those t’s and dotting the i’s. Holli loves sports. She too was a college athlete. Her determination and work ethic are valued by the Brownell staff.
“Holli has a loving family in Pat, her husband, and their children, Ben and Emma. Her children keep her very busy with Emma’s volleyball matches and Ben’s soccer games. Holli leads the way each year in setting up a Brownell staff vs. girls’ volleyball match at Brownell. It’s fabulous that she prioritizes time for both Brownell family and McNally family fun.”
Cheryl Owsen, secretary, Brownell Middle School
“Samantha McGrath has been an excellent addition to the Parcells staff. She is extremely supportive of students and families and has quickly become a go-to resource for the staff. Sam is a strong instructional leader and is great at helping to solve complex problems.”
“Debra Redlin has built strong relationships with Parcells students, parents and staff over the last seven years. Her commitment to making the school a more fun and welcoming place for students is seen through Parcells’ PBIS program and annual Pantherpalooza. These initiatives that Debbie spearheaded support additional student activities and raised money to renovate the Parcells lobby.”
Dan Hartley, former principal, Parcells Middle School
“Judy Gaffrey is a dedicated educator. For as long as I've known her, her passion and dedication for her staff and students have always been at the forefront of everything she does. Judy challenges us — her staff — to consider many perspectives, and we know she always has our best interests at heart. Pierce would not be the same without her!”
Geneva Scully, academic assistance and reading intervention 6-8, Pierce Middle School
The Browns: A family that learns together
Megan and Pat Brown interviewed for the same fourth-grade teaching position at Defer Elementary 16 years ago. Megan’s interview was at 1 p.m. and Pat’s was at 1:30 p.m. Megan was offered the job.
The two were engaged at the time. They even car pooled to the interview together.
There was no animosity afterwards, the couple agrees.
“She was just better than me,” Pat acknowledged.
Megan clarified that she had subbed for two years in the Grosse Pointe Public School System, while Pat was fresh out of college. It was his first interview.
Pat went on to teach in Hamtramck for two years, then at University Liggett School for one, before a position opened up at Kerby Elementary and he was hired. He remained at Kerby for 10 years, making the switch to Brownell when fifth grade moved to the middle schools.
Megan is currently in her second year at Kerby after remaining at Defer for four years. From there she spent a decade at Richard Elementary.
Pat began teaching at Kerby the same year the Browns’ oldest child, Emmy, was born. Emmy joined her dad when she began school and the two have remained together ever since, even making the transition together from Kerby to Brownell when Emmy started fifth grade.
Meanwhile, Emmy’s younger brother Hudson, a third grader, and Cece, a first grader, are at Kerby with their mom.
Megan grew up in St. Clair Shores and attended Regina High School. Pat was a Harper Woods resident and went to Poupard, Parcells and Grosse Pointe North. They met while working at a summer day camp in Grosse Pointe; he was 16 and she was 18.
The first summer, they were each dating other people. By the second summer, Pat had broken up with his girlfriend and Megan was in the process of breaking up with her boyfriend. Things clicked and they maintained a long-distance relationship for a while. Once Pat graduated from college, “I decided it was time to pull the trigger and put a ring on it,” he said.
While both were education majors — Megan at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Pat at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids — Megan knew she wanted to be a teacher since she was six. Pat came to this realization a bit later.
“I distinctly remember a conversation where Pat was trying to figure out a major and I knew how good he was at the day camp working with kids,” Megan said. “I said, ‘Well, I think you should be a teacher; you’re such a natural at it.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I have the patience for it.’”
“I still don’t,” he quipped.
However, Megan’s remark “got the wheels turning,” Pat said, and he spent his sophomore year “wondering — and there was no looking back after that.”
Pat also hasn’t looked back on his decision to move to Brownell as a fifth-grade teacher. As both a teacher and a parent who went through the transition, he says it all went remarkably well.
“The kids got with the program so quickly,” he said. “They picked up where everything was. They’re so much more adaptive and resilient than the adults were. The adults were the ones worried and stressed about it. The kids showed up and said, ‘OK, we’re middle schoolers now,’ and got with the program. Especially with the weirdness of last year (due to COVID-19), they handled it like total champs.”
Megan admits she was one of those worried adults.
“Our daughter was in that group that was the first one to go,” she said. “Of course, we were a little nervous about it, but she transitioned wonderfully. We really liked, too, how the fifth and sixth grades cohorted and the seventh and eighth grades cohorted. There are a lot more elective choices they would not have had in elementary school, so there have been a lot of positives.”
“Fifth graders, in my experience, by winter and spring are ready to fly anyway,” Pat added. “They want to be middle schoolers already.”
With their children joining them in the district all these years and for the foreseeable future, the Browns are in GPPSS to stay.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Pat said.
Alumni Through the Decades
Our 100th anniversary series on GPPSS alumni continues.
Eva Dou
Grosse Pointe South High School
Class of 2008
Joining GPPSS from Seoul, South Korea, Eva Dou appeared in the district’s latest episode of “Voices.”
Eva Dou was a student at Grosse Pointe South High School when she decided she wanted to become a journalist. Today she is an award-winning reporter covering China news for the Washington Post.
Eva joined the Tower newspaper for one semester “because it seemed like fun. Gradually I realized it was my favorite thing to do and so I decided to go on and study journalism in college.”
She served as editor-in-chief on the Tower her senior year. After graduating in 2008, she attended the University of Missouri, receiving a bachelor of arts dual-degree in economics and journalism. From there, she worked for the Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal in Taiwan covering electronics companies.
While at the Wall Street Journal, Eva was part of a team that won the 2018 Loeb award for international reporting for a series on China. The series, according to Eva, was about “how China is implementing surveillance technologies in a very rapid way, including facial recognition and surveillance cameras, and building the most closely surveyed place on earth.” The team worked on the project for about a year.
Eva remained at the WSJ for seven years, joining the Washington Post at the beginning of last year — right when the pandemic was starting. Throughout her career she has worked as a foreign correspondent, reporting from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, India and Belgium. Currently she is the Washington Post’s China business and economy correspondent based in Seoul.
Eva said her favorite part of being a journalist is “you get to satisfy your curiosity about how the world works. You get to ask people questions and go places that people otherwise might tell you, you have no business being. You’re trying to write on behalf of the people, trying to think what things are important for the public to know and then trying to find a way to report it out and write it.
“This past year of course, no matter where you’re based as a journalist, the pandemic has been the story we’ve been covering,” she added. “For us covering China, a lot of this past year has been about China’s policies, including the search for the pandemic’s origins, for which still there is no clear answer. A lot of us — me included — haven’t been able to go back to China because with the trade war and the pandemic, they’ve suspended visas for a number of American journalists. It’s really been a challenge: from the outside, from another place, you have to think of new ways to report.”
Recent headlines with Eva’s byline include a Sept. 7 article, “Inside the Wuhan lab: French engineering, deadly viruses and a big mystery,” in which the reporters explored how, after decades of researching agricultural pests, the Wuhan Institute of Virology was seeking to make its mark with a new high-security lab. Then the pandemic erupted.
For students considering a career in journalism today, Eva advised not waiting “for someone to tell you that you’re old enough to do this or that you now have permission to do this.”
For example, in her own high school days with the Tower, she recalls “it feeling so amazing as a student. We would get together and debate the school’s policies and then write this editorial that expresses our views.”
“If there’s something that really speaks to you as far as a profession or a hobby or something you just want to try out, you’re not too young as a high schooler to start doing it,” Eva said. “Just give it a try.”
To read more Alumni Through the Decades spotlights, go to gpalumniandfriends.org. Click here to nominate someone.
AAUW presents art contest for teens
The American Association of University of Women Grosse Pointe branch is hosting an art contest for young artists ages 13 to 19.
The theme is “Listen to Women” and the AAUW GP branch is inviting young artists to explore the achievements and contributions of women and to shine a light on issues women have faced and continue to face today.
This is a juried show with $600 awarded in cash prizes. Entries must be delivered between 4 and 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 8, to the Manoogian Art Gallery at University Liggett School, 1045 Cook Road, Grosse Pointe Woods.
The exhibition is Nov. 12 to Dec. 15. The gallery is open to visitors during school hours until 3:30 p.m.
There will be an opening exhibit from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 18, and the gallery will be open to the public from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 5, when awards will be presented.
Contact the AAUW GP Branch at aauwgp@gmail.com with questions or for an entry form.
The mission of the AAUW since 1881 is to advance gender equity for women and girls through research, education and advocacy. The Grosse Pointe branch began in 1944.
School Pointes is a publication of the Grosse Pointe Public School System. To submit story ideas or Pointes of Pride, email info@gpschools.org.