This is one of the common threads that runs through successful schools filled with mostly poor and minority children. Strategies, programs and even the chemistry among staff members vary among these schools. But all are led by principals with a relentless focus on achievement. All the schools are pretty much in the same boat here. But success at these schools is often fragile.
Staff turnover is still a problem.
Some teachers will trade their daily drive down a country road for a 75-mile commute to the Triangle, where a similar job might pay 15 percent more. The departure of a strong principal can trigger a staff exodus. When Ann Edge suggested this might be her last year as principal at Baskerville Elementary in Rocky Mount, she made a simple request of her staff. Edge became principal at Baskerville 14 years ago. A reorganization in the early 1990s created an elementary school from kindergarten to fifth grade, but it also removed most of the white children and almost all of the middle-class families.