THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 12, 1994 TAG: 9408110151
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Michael C. Spencer, the new principal of Hunt-Mapp Middle School who taught math for nearly a decade, views himself as a ``principal-teacher.''
Perhaps a more accurate description would be principal-teacher-activist.
As a school administrator, president of the district's PTA Council, president of the recently formed Portsmouth Principals Association, and a board member of a local advocacy group for girls, he wears more hats than many in his position.
Spencer strongly believes in staying in the loop. His networking, he said, often helps him gain additional resources for students.
Spencer served as principal of William E. Waters Middle School for the past five years. He was moved to Hunt-Mapp as part of a district reorganization. Hunt-Mapp's former principal, Kenneth Hopkins, left the district for a job in Front Royal, Va.
``When I was at Waters, I fought as hard as I could for everything at Waters,'' he said. ``But I'm not at Waters anymore. So my fight now is for Hunt-Mapp.''
Spencer, 44, inherited a school with about 37 percent more students than Waters and a school for which the district and the city's health department garnered a state grant to open a health center later this fall.
The school-based health center will offer basic medical services - such as blood pressure screenings and immunizations - to needy children.
By most accounts, Spencer is a popular principal because he can make things happen. And, he said, he always treats parents as true partners.
``I've never talked to a parent yet who didn't want the very best for their child,'' he said.
His philosophy that all students are capable of achieving great things was put into action about three years ago when the Waters staff decided to eliminate academic tracking and expose all students to challenging course work.
Tracking is the grouping of students in elementary and secondary school, usually according to presumed ability. Students are designated as bright, average or slow, and their instruction is tailored accordingly. Entrenched tracking is now frowned upon because students often remain stuck in a particular track throughout their school years and fail to work up to their potential.
As a child, Spencer had himself been incorrectly identified as a slow learner.
``Rather than give kids labels,'' he said, ``we must give them opportunities, and if they don't take the opportunities after working with parents and the teachers, that's OK.
``But the opportunities need to be there. We need to be there. We need to stop telling kids what they can't do,'' he said.
Like other principals, he, too, had spoken of broadening the school's role as a community institution. Then he acted.
He urged the city's Parks and Recreation Department to co-sponsor an after-school recreational program in the Waters gym. The program is still in place.
While most urban school districts are often plagued by cash crunches, Spencer says money is seldom the solution to unsatisfactory performance in the classroom.
``I haven't yet seen a real educational problem where money was the issue,'' he said. ``It's usually a mind set, or we have to change the way we're looking at the problem. Money usually is not the issue. Money is the nicety.''
He says his own mind set is locked on continuous improvement.
``Critics would say that sometimes I make school not comfortable for them, particularly employees,'' he said. ``Sometimes things are in turmoil. I have high expectations. It's not necessarily business as usual.'' MEMO: RESUME
MICHAEL C. SPENCER, principal of Hunt-Mapp Middle School
Age: 44
Residence: Ghent neighborhood of Norfolk.
Family: Married to Karen, a fourth-grade teacher at Churchland
Elementary; 15-year-old daughter attends Norfolk's Maury High School
Education: Bachelor's in mathematics from Old Dominion University;
master's in school administration from ODU
Previous position: Principal of William E. Waters Middle School for
five years
Years in district: 20; taught math for eight years. Spencer is the
newly elected president of the district's PTA Council. He also is
president of the recently formed Portsmouth Principals Association. The
association is a professional group that formed during the past school
year, in part as a response to the district's new system of evaluating
principals.
Salary: $48,526.40 ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Michael C. Spencer is the new principal of Hunt-Mapp Middle School.
by CNB