THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 23, 1995 TAG: 9512230379
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: By MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
Parents of students at the Albemarle School in Elizabeth City frequently profess they want extremely high standards set for their kids' education at the conservative institution.
So do members of the Board of Directors.
So it came as a shock to the local educational community this month when Anne Henderson, the elegant and widely honored headmistress abruptly walked out.
When Henderson quit, she left stinging parting words for those directors and parents she held responsible for undercutting her authority and forcing her departure.
``I have worked in many settings and a variety of circumstances but I cannot recall any to parallel what I have witnessed at the Albemarle School,'' said Henderson in a letter of farewell to ``Dear Parents and Students.''
Henderson formally broke with the school's board at an angry recent meeting and has since chosen to publicize her views in the letter to parents and students and in other public statements.
There was retrospective irony in her departure.
When the Albemarle School directors recruited Henderson last June to run their integration-born private institution, there seemed to be no praise fulsome enough for the educator.
``She's an extraordinary person,'' John Morrison, an influential Elizabeth City attorney on the Albemarle School Board, said in April when the trustees were planning to hire Henderson.
``In the very first interview she absolutely stunned us; she was everybody's favorite,'' echoed Bernie Blystone, chairman of the board.
Not any more.
All Morrison had to say last week about Henderson's abrupt departure was ``I can't talk about it. . . .''
Blystone, too, avoided comment.
But while the school directors tried to keep a lid on, the former headmistress had plenty to say.
``It was not long after the opening of the school year that it became increasingly apparent . . . that I was a serious disappointment to at least a few board members,'' Henderson said in her letter.
``Our values were simply not compatible. I did not find acceptable certain forms of adult behavior in a school setting. . . .
``I do not condone gossip; lying for convenience or personal gain; baiting and harassing selected students whose parents are the main reasons for resentment or anger; inflating grades to pacify other parents; conspiring in flagrant open fashion; intimidating teachers and aides; conveniently . . . concealing messages and other communication to the Headmistress; discussing real or imagined tales of scandal; maligning teachers and even students in front of students; lewd talk over the office telephones. . . .''
To most parents and all of the students, Henderson addressed mostly kind words, but she left no doubt she intended her break with the school directors to be both public, final and in anger as well as sorrow.
Henderson is a woman of small stature and enormous presence. For 30 years she has followed a career in education that has left her with a wall full of diplomas and academic honors. She met her husband, now a retired Army colonel, many years ago in Washington and they both ended up as college professors. They also ended up living in a beautiful white mansion in Pine Lakes north of Elizabeth City.
Henderson is a daughter of Italian immigrants and something of a maverick. Years ago, when she came to Elizabeth City to teach, she and her husband had trouble buying a house because the owners learned the Hendersons were going to be white faculty members at the Elizabeth City State University, an African-American institution.
Both eventually retired from ECSU as emeritus professors.
Henderson blamed a clique of willful parents for making her life difficult with the Albemarle School directors.
``They told me they wanted a strong headmistress and agreed to let me run the school my way,'' she said.
But almost from the start, parents began influencing the trustees to impose secret decisions that countermanded Henderson's management directives, she said.
``We had a rule about upper classmen being clean-shaven,'' she said. ``One young man seemed to be determined to grow a goatee. I told him to shave it off but he didn't.''
A tempest in a shaving-mug soon developed, she said. Henderson said she ordered the student to return clean-shaven or be expelled.
Parents of the student then sent the student back with a letter from a physician that said the goatee was necessary because of a skin condition.
Henderson said she was constantly circumvented by trustee or parental schemes until she decided her authority as headmistress had been destroyed.
``The students were allowed to overhear faculty discussions that critized the headmistress.
``When I took the position I was assured by the board that they wanted a strong academic school which represented and promoted high ethical, moral and academic values,'' Henderson told the parents.
``I was assured that I was the school administrator in every respect.''
But almost immediately after she took over, the cliques and cabals among some trustees and parents made a shambles of her discipline at the school, she said.
``The directors continued to interfere in every aspect of the school.'' She said parents often intervened with the directors to thwart even small disciplinary actions against students.
One director who tried to head off the developing collision between Henderson and the board was Diana ``Donnie'' Gardner, director of the Albemarle Cancer Center. Gardner worked closely for many years with Henderson in North Carolina education programs.
``Before Dr. Henderson came, the school had been without a headmistress or headmaster for a long time,'' said Gardner, ``and the board got used to doing the everyday micromanaging.
``Then Dr. Henderson came along; a strong-willed and very competent headmistress who believed the trustees when they told her she had full authority to run the school.
``On several occasions I suggested to the board that Anne was the sort of person who would spend a lot of time just studying the situation. She wouldn't do much until she felt she knew what course to follow.
``Unfortunately, nobody gave her a chance.''
Henderson, in her swan song, repeatedly praised the students. She said she ``felt the Albemarle School was a school with unbelievable potential to provide a sound, rich education as well as a setting for the development of strong values.
``I believed that the board sincerely wanted these things and would do everything possible to make a dream reality. . . . ``
Her final words to the students were:
``Stand tall, speak truthfully (and grammatically) at all times, be courteous, but do not let anyone denigrate you. Use your minds and your knowledge; be true to yourselves and your values.''
Last Friday, it was learned, the directors decided on a new educator to run the school and promised an announcement soon. by CNB