DATE: Sunday, October 5, 1997               TAG: 9710050072

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   93 lines

PRINCIPAL LEADS THE CHARGE, WITH ENTHUSIASM AND ENCOURAGEMENT

``Did you feel good this morning when you got up and felt that crisp fall air? It got my eyes open.''

It's morning announcement time at Willard Model Elementary School, and principal Lillian Brinkley is her usual bouncy self.

She frequently rings her bell to introduce bits of news and do-good reminders.

Brinkley announces that a new fourth-grade teacher is coming and that there will be a lottery to decide which students will have her: ``Whoever you are, you're going to be very, very fortunate.''

She thanks them for their good attendance: ``Most of you try very, very hard to be here every day; we want you here because great things happen at Willard.''

She bids them farewell, with a nudge toward excellence: ``It's a wonderful day for learning. Stay on task, and you'll do your job.''

Brinkley, who calls herself the ``best-kept fossil'' in Norfolk schools, has been a principal for 28 years, the past 12 at Willard, piling up awards such as National Distinguished Principal and state Elementary Principal of the Year. With her can-do attitude and electric personal touch - greeting students outside at the start each day, hugging some she passes in the halls - she is seen by parents and teachers as the school's guiding light.

Helen Winstead, whose granddaughter, Magan, is a fourth-grader, marvels at the way Brinkley knows virtually every student's name. ``She talks to them so much,'' Winstead says. ``They know they are there to learn, and she is there to help them.''

Ronald McGarity, a kindergarten teacher, says: ``She will let us take chances. She's not a principal who says, `This is the book; this is how to do it.' ''

Willard is the urban school in the region with the highest average score for black students on this year's Stanford 9 exams. In the mid-'80s, the state designated it a ``model'' school, a showcase for its success with students. Brinkley says educators from across the state still visit. This is what they might see:

Sarah Peoples is a blur as she whizzes from group to group in her fifth-grade class at Willard. ``Look for your letters, upside down, all around; look for them,'' she orders.

The students have bunches of cut-out letters. They're trying to group them together to spell the words she calls out.

``Natural resources.''

Hands jump up. Peoples walks around, checking spelling. She calls on Tiffanee Watkins, who gets it right. ``Give her a hand,'' Peoples says; the class bursts into applause.

Peoples throws out other words: ``temperature,'' ``humorous,'' ``responsible.'' The pace is frenetic, like a game show. Letters are shifted around. Hands reach out for her attention. ``I got it, I got it,'' voices scream. Denzel Harris, who already got one right, stamps his feet in eagerness to show off again.

Peoples offers little tolerance for mistakes. To one student's ``enterupted,'' she yells back: ``That's `enter' - come inside of a building. That's not it. . . . Get it right, get it right.''

It's not the standard way of doing spelling: Write the words in your notebook. But Brinkley says the best way to teach students is to use a variety of strategies. Like Peoples' jigsaw approach to spelling.

If Peoples' class is a swirl of activity, McGarity's kindergarten room is a swirl of colors. There's hardly an open spot on the walls.

There's a sign proclaiming ``Kindergarten Is Cool.'' An area for ``Blue Ribbon Work'' - paintings made the first day of school. Pictures for each month - April features an umbrella, September a football helmet.

A clothesline drooping across the room displays more of the children's artwork. Stretched across the opposite wall is a number line from 0 to 100.

McGarity leads the class with a booming voice that regularly breaks into hoots of delight.

On the board is a three-line poem: ``Fall is here/The leaves come down/Red, yellow, orange and brown.''

``The first time,'' he tells the youngsters, ``you're going to read after me; the second time you're going to read with me; and the third time you're going to read to me.''

It doesn't go perfectly, but they're learning it. ``It's a long one,'' he assures them. ``Go like this'' - he wipes his brow. ``It's going to take a while. Give yourselves a hand.''

The important thing, he says afterward at recess, ``is that in three weeks I've got them believing they can read that. Once I get them to believe they can do something, it's so much easier.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MOTOYA NAKAMURA/ The Virginian-Pilot

Principal Lillian Brinkley helps set the tone at Willard Model

Elementary. She greets students outside every morning, she hugs

students in the halls. Here, she helps Allison Grose in Ronald

McGarity's kindergarten class. KEYWORDS: TEST SCORES STANDARDIZED TESTING

SCHOOLS HAMPTON ROADS NORFOLK

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