THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 2, 1995 TAG: 9506020531
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
Janet M. Andrejco doesn't feel much like a pioneer.
But the 41-year-old became one last week when she was named principal of Oscar Smith High.
Andrejco is the first woman in city history to head a high school.
She'll be one of only three female high school principals in South Hampton Roads.
The other two are Marjorie L. Stealey of Norfolk's Norview High and Patricia Griffin of Virginia Beach's Princess Anne High. Virginia Beach had two, but Salem High School Principal Ramona Stenzhorn died in November and was replaced by a man.
Portsmouth and Suffolk have no women serving as high school principals this school year.
Andrejco will take over for Glenn L. Koonce, who has been Oscar Smith's principal since 1990 and will leave on July 1 to take an administrative position in the school system's central office.
``I really believe that I was selected for my position for who I am as a person, not because I'm a woman,'' Andrejco said.
Chesapeake officials said there never had been an organized effort to keep women out of the high school principalship; nor was there a specific push to hire one.
``I wish I could take credit for something as honorable as that,'' said Deputy Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols, who will become superintendent this summer. Nichols, in announcing last week the first phase of a large-scale administrative reorganization, also promoted a woman to his top leadership team. The district now will have two female assistant superintendents instead of just one.
``It's just that they're the most qualified people,'' Nichols said of his appointees.
In public school systems nationally, women traditionally have held fewer top leadership jobs than men. In South Hampton Roads, women occupy only 12 percent of the high school principalships.
``The inequities have existed historically,'' said Elaine P. Witty, dean of the Norfolk State University school of education. ``And it reflects inequities in society. It's unfortunate, since schools provide such direct role models for children.''
The problem, Witty said, has been a perception that high school leadership roles are more complicated than those at the elementary or middle-school level.
``I think that there's just a perception that a high school principal carries more prestige than an elementary principal, and therefore it's perceived as a man's job,'' she said. ``There's nothing in the job description that would make a male more suited to the work than a female.''
That perception may have existed in Chesapeake at one time, Nichols said. But a larger factor recently has been low turnover in high school principals, he said. Two of the five in Chesapeake have been in their jobs for more than 20 years. Another took over in 1991 for a principal who retired after nearly 30 years; another has held his position since 1987.
``Since we have only five high schools, it limits the opportunities that you have'' to promote people, Nichols said.
Andrejco said she just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right credentials.
Her resume reads like a how-to booklet for aspiring principals, although she had no idea she wanted to be an administrator when she started out as a teacher in Pennsylvania in the 1970s.
Raised in Tamaqua, Pa., Andrejco decided she wanted to be a teacher when she entered public school in the sixth grade, after five years in Catholic school. Riding the public school buses for the first time, she discovered that special education students were bused to programs out of town.
``I just thought that was terrible,'' she said. ``They were bused away from their friends and so far away from home.''
Andrejco's teacher training was in special education, which is considered a good foundation for administrators because instructing disabled students is complicated and intense.
She never envisioned leaving the classroom. But working during summer school in Pennsylvania as a senior teacher, with its unwritten administrative duties, Andrejco found she liked ``serving and nurturing the other teachers.''
She came to Chesapeake in 1979 as a special-education teacher and eventually landed her first administrative position as coordinator for special education in 1982. Later she worked for the personnel department, evaluating and hiring teachers.
She joined Oscar Smith as an assistant principal in 1990, the same year Koonce became principal.
Andrejco said she planned to continue some of Koonce's initiatives, such as a safe-school task force that includes students, an annual academic awards ceremony and a parent resource center that opened in the building this year.
``I'd like to see more parents get involved,'' she said.
To that end, she's helping the Parent Teacher Association raise the $7,000 needed to buy a phone system that would automatically call parents with important school messages, such as when students were absent or were receiving progress reports. The system also would allow parents to call to find out about school events. So far, the PTA has raised about $4,000.
Andrejco wants to make a difference at the school, but she wants to do it in more ways than just gender trend-setting.
``I think the important thing is that I want people to look at me first as a principal and second as a female,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Janet Andrejco
Graphic by Steve Stone
FEMALE PRINCIPALS
Shown below are the number of city high schools having women as
principals.
City No. of schools female principals
Chesapeake 5 1*
Norfolk 5 1
Portsmouth 3 0
Suffolk 2 0
Virginia Beach 10 1
* After July 1
KEYWORDS: FEMALE PRINCIPAL WOMAN CHESAPEAKE SCHOOLS by CNB