Interview with Herbert J. Saunders

05/07/87.

Q: I would like to start with your childhood. When were you born?

(Streamed audio file of interview for this question using RealPlayer)

A: I was born on July 16, 1914 makes me 71 years old. Do you want to know where I was born? I was born in a coal mining camp of West Virginia. The coal mining camp was Summerlee, West Virginia. That's one of the spokes out side of Oak Hill, West Virginia. That's in Fayette County, and in the coal mining camps (if you're not acquainted with them) there was one fairly large town in a wheel that became the hub; and then the spokes would feed out from that into the different coal mining camps and would be located 3-4-5-6-7-8 miles out of that town ... there would be somewhere in the neighborhood surrounding that one large town - some 5-8-10 or 12 coal mines (coal mining camps) and those coal mining camps were owned by a corporation, and they had their own houses which the mine rented from the company. They had a company store (a commissary) - there they sold all of the food and clothing, and for the most part furniture - anything that was needed for a livable situation in these coal mining homes. Some of the coal mining camps had recreational lives .... had a barbershop, and a pool hall and some had movies, but that was generally the extent of it. Athletically, some of the coal mining camps had baseball teams, and they imported some baseball players. Then they competed against other coal mining camps around. So this place where I was born - Summerlee (that's about 3 miles outside of Oak Hill) that's one of the spokes. Then there were other spokes that went to other coal mining camps around. Now all of those coal mining camps have all been worked out, and so only one ... it so happens to be the same place where I was born (at Summerlee) ... that all of the coal there is being strip mined, where they take the operating equipment and knock off the top soil from the mountains and push that over the side and then with the bulldozers they scoop up the coal and load it into railroad cars. They take it to a central place, and that happens to be in that same town or coal mining camp where I was born. That's where they put it in the railroad cars to ship it to Norfolk or wherever it is going to be used.

A: But so far as the town is concerned, the coal mining camp, all of the homes have been sold off by the company because basically they've gone out of business, except for this one small part, and the company store is no longer in existence. It's just a little dead town, but people still reside in the places because they bought the coal mining homes. I still have a sister who lives in the town (the city of) Oak Hill, West Virginia, and I have an uncle; so to keep my ties back home we go back, my wife and I go back every six weeks or two months to visit my sister and basically my uncle, because on my mother's side he is the last (the oldest) relative that I have on my mother's side. I have one other relative on my father's side who is my aunt, my father's sister. She lives in England and she is the last ... she is the oldest survivor on my father's side; and then I'm next in line. Which is very nice; but it, too, has its sadness 'cause it means you're coming to the end of the line.

Q: I will. Getting back to your youth, you mentioned that you had a sister. Did you have any other sisters, brothers?

A: Yes, there are five of us in the family. My mother and father were both born in England and they both came to this country separately. My mother and her family moved here from England and they moved to Canada, and then moved from there down to the United States. They were coal miners in England, Canada, and the United States. While they were in West Virginia my father had come from England by himself, migrated to this country because of the better opportunities in this country. And so at the age of 16 he came to this country and was working in the coal mines and met my mother and they were married in this country and there were five children. I had two brothers and two sisters. I was the oldest. The youngest was a brother. He was killed in the second World War - the Battle of the Bulge. Then I had another brother that was in the second World War, along with me. He's dead -- died in 1983. Then I have two sisters who are both living -- one in West Virginia that I spoke of -- and another one is in Sumpter, South Carolina.

Q: Since you lived in a small town, I imagine you walked to you elementary school.

A: Yes, the first school I ever went to, I went to what we called a primer. That would correspond to your kindergarten today. The primer was the grade preceding the first grade. So I was staying with my grandmother because I was the first of the grandchildren and I was collared by my grandparents on my mother's side because my other grandparents were in England. So I was staying (living with them). My mother and father lived in a different coal mining camp at that time. I was five years old and I was living with my grandmother. On the first day of school I went to school and my grandmother lived right next door to the school. So I went home for lunch and my grandmother sent me to the company store (to the post office) to get the paper. The papers were delivered through the mail -- always a day late, but we got the papers that way. They had a playground there at Summerlee so I went down after I got the paper and I played at the playground; and when I got back home my grandmother told me that the teacher had been over seeking my whereabouts. So she told my I'd better get back over to the school. When I got over to the school the teacher asked me where I'd been and I told her honestly - not knowing what the rules and regulations were in attending school since that was my first day. Well, anyway, I got a rude awakening. She called me to the front of the room, asked me to bend over the seat, and she proceeded to paddle my rear end.

A: The first day of school. Well, that set the stage for 30 days I got 30 whippings. For one reason or another I got 30 whippings, so my mother and father decided that I was off on the wrong track with my grandparents and at school so they took me out of school and took me home. And then where we lived they didn't have the primer grade, so I had to lay out they year. So the next year I started in the first grade ... didn't have to go to the primer. I started in the first grade, and I was successful. I went through the first and second grades in one year -- to the third grade in a one-room school that had eight grades in it. The one class (one grade) would be called to the front to sit on the first pew (seat), and the teacher would be up in front while the other seven grades would be working at their desk on math, and they would have their math assignment. The first or second grade would be working on their math up in front with the teacher. After their 15 minutes were up they'd go back and then call up the second grade. Then you did the same thing for reading, so that you always had desk work or you were up with the teacher reciting.

Q: Do you feel that you learned well in that situation? I know it's hard to tell when you're a small child in a situation.

A: Yes, I think you did, because the discipline was much greater, and of course that fear was there, fear of the teacher, as well as fear of the parents. Most parents, at that time, if you got a whipping at school, you got a whipping when you got home. The other reason is that I think you learned more was the fact that your offering, your curriculum was quite limited in that you had your reading, writing, and arithmetic and a little play period, and that was the extent of it. Because with eight grades in a one-room school, the teacher had to move from one class to another and to cover all those things. As a common educator, I have appreciated those one-room teachers, because of their individual work, providing for indviduals in those classes. Individualism to the extent that it was an individual class, not an individual person. Because they had to provide for the first grade, while they were reciting up in front and then while they were at the desk work. To facilitate the good management, since that's a part of your administrative course, those teachers had a system worked out that if you wanted to speak to another student, you held one finger in the air; the teacher would nod "yes" or "no", granting you permission to speak. If you wanted to get a drink of water, you had to hold two fingers up, and the teacher would nod her head in approval or disapproval. You obeyed, whatever the answer was in the nod. The third was to be excused to go to the bathroom, the outside bathroom.

A: Never! Never. I remember one or two incidents when parents at that time felt their children could do no wrong and blamed the teacher, and they would visit the teacher during the daytime when we were in class. You'd know something was wrong...

Q: Now, in your course work at Lynchburg, were you doing your Liberal Arts degree?

Q: So as you went through you really didn't have an idea that you were going into education at first.

A: Not until my senior year. They had the education, and then they had practice teaching at the college, and so ...... but it was merely sufficient to meet the state certification. I think it was 12 hours of education that was required and then with practice teaching you were eligible for your Collegiate Professional Certificate at that time. So that's basically the courses that were offered at Lynchburg. In my senior year I had my education courses and I had my practice teaching. In my senior year I knew what I was going to do, prior to that, I did not.

Q: Do you remember anything special about your education courses? Do you feel they were interesting or worthwhile, or were they just sort of routine courses that you spent your time, did your work, and then just sort of forgot?

A: At the undergraduate level none of the courses were anything. There was nothing outstanding. I do remember one of my professors, however, in one of the education courses that I had. I tended to beat around the bush.

A: Yes, right. And any type of report and things of that nature -- not verbalizing. But when anything was written I tended to beat around the bush, and she called my hand. I didn't do it intentionally .... it was just my way, because I had not had the proper background in writing. So she said, "Instead of beating around the bush, go to the point and stop." Her name was Professor Estelle Cochran and I remember that.

A: Cochran. She is from Hagerstown, Maryland and I remember that. She's the one that taught me to go to the point, find the root of the problem ... go to that. If you've got a problem .... go to the root and solve your problem. And I figured it back to that.

A: Yes, Yes. It's just like math. I had difficulty with algebra for, I don't know, six weeks ... maybe two six week periods or something like that. Once I got algebra I got along fine. It was solid geometry, and all of a sudden it just came to me just like that. Just open your eyes, open your eyes to this. Then graduate work ..... I had some people that helped me, and I'm going to give you some help, since you're in the area of instruction.

A: After I graduated from Lynchburg in '39, I had ...... I sent out about 30 applications throughout Virginia School Divisions. Had three jobs offered to me, which was very flattering at that time because very few teaching positions were available. Most of the ones there was no growth in Virginia ...... we were all agricultural, and at that time Arlington County was all agricultural. Yes, there were no shopping centers in Northern Virginia at all, and just like Fauquier County, Culpeper, all of those. Alexandria was the one large area of the city and next was Arlington County and then Fairfax County was all agricultural too. Even so, I came up one Spring on a baseball trip to Maryland and Delaware, stopped in on a Sunday and saw the Superintendent of Schools, who happened to be R.C. Haydn. At that time a school in Manassas was named after him - the R.C. Haydn Elementary School. And he gave me my first job teaching physical education, history and coaching at Osbourn High School in Manassas at the grand annual salary o[ $900 for a year. That's for nine months teaching. Now one salary was $810, but because I was coaching Mr. Haydn gave me $10 extra a month. So that made me $10 a month for nine months. $900 was my annual salary. In the summer months I started a playground in Manassas, and the School Board gave me $100 a month for that. At that time if at the end of the school year a teacher got no annual teaching salary scale, and whatever salary you signed for, that's the salary you kept unless you became an administrator or supervisor. A superintendent and three supervisors was the total on the staff for the whole county -- Prince William County.

Q: We stopped last time talking about your annual salary of $900 a year working over at what was to become Osbourn High School. At that time Manassas was part of Prince William County. How many years did you stay there?

A: At Osbourn I was a teacher and coach from '39 to '42. Pearl Harbor had happened in '41 so I continued teaching through that year. Then I got a commission in the United States Navy, so .... as an instructor in the pre-flight training school, called Cadets - Naval Cadets. So in June I went into that and was transferred from the University of North Carolina where I did my training to the University of Iowa in Iowa City - the pre-flight school there. And while I was there I taught the academic program. I think I missed this before but I'm not sure. The academic program for the Navy and it's all about the Navy tradition and the ships and things of that nature ... and different types of planes in the Navy for recognition purposes, because they were going to have to recognize the enemy planes and then I also taught while I was there the sports program and also the military. After two years there I was transferred to the Naval Station and there the cadets were learning to fly. That's where they got their first flying lessons, and I was in the military teaching military to the Cadets at Naval Air Station. Then when I came back I came back to vocational school in Manassas. Now that was during the war it was NYA school, National Youth Administration School, federally funded and then the Prince William County School Board along with eight other counties and the city of Alexandria bought that school and started having vocational education for Northern Virginia and that continued and I stayed there from '46 for a year and a half and from there I went to Occoquan. While I was there at the vocational school I was the Assistant Principal, and then I went to Occoquan as the Principal of the Occoquan Elementary and High School and that was '47 until '53, and then '53 I became principal of Gar-Field, and stayed at Gar-Field until '63 as principal and then Stuart Beville, the Superintendent of Schools asked me to set up the Personnel Department and the School Board office. Prior to that there was no department, and the Superintendent, the Supervisor of Instruction and the Supervisor of Maintenance did all the recruiting so that was the beginning of '63 - the beginning of the population explosion in Prince William County, so I was the Director or Assistant Superintendent of Personnel from '63 to '75 when I retired. Then during the '72-73 school year, Mr. Beville, the Superintendent, resigned at the end of the third year of his four-year term of office and accepted a position at Virginia Tech in the extension division and the School Board appointed me as the Superintendent of Schools that year; so I served '72-73 as the Division Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of Personnel.

A: Yes, and then I retired in '75 and went on the School Board in '76. And here I am today.

A: Oh well, I suppose basically the same as all schools, both then and today. It was to do the very best for each individual student, to pick them up where they were and take them as far as you could, and it came to graduation. It was a child-centered school.

Q: Did you have a committee that formed the philosophy? Or was it pretty much an understood thing?

A: The faculty. Back in the 50's the parents had not gotten ... had not become instant educators. And so they did not participate as much in the school curriculum as they do at the present time. And I'm not sure that that was bad. I think probably, at least I personally attribute part of our problem in the school system - the deterioration of discipline particularly -- to the fact that we got parents into the school system as extensively as we have. I have earmarked them as instant educators. And that has created some problems for the professional educator. That has resulted in the loss of discipline in schools. I don't know whether that answers your question.

Q: Yes. What is your particular philosophy of education and teaching? Is it different from your view from the principalship or is it pretty much the same - the same child - and taking him or her as far as you can?

A: My philosophy in each case would be that I believe you must love children...a desire on the part of the individual to want to be of service to children. And based upon that, you do what you can for them, teaching them the values, academic skills, so that they might have satisfactory background to be successful in their life.

Q: You mentioned values. When you were teaching did you encounter any situations when the parents disagreed with the values you had, or the values that some of the other educators in the school had?

A: Rarely. Because as I said, we had P.T.A.'s. The P.T.A.'s were mostly what they perform today as to type of service, and that is to provide some of the things for the school that were not appropriated by the School Board. But, that was about the extent of it. Parents were not involved in it, and we didn't have too much obstruction from parents. Now once in a while a parent would become concerned about a teacher or a principal. In fact, one became concerned over an action I had taken against her son, and went to the School Board. But the School Board was supportive of me, and that was the end of it.

Q: Was it an extremely different case, or was it a fairly normal case as far as a discipline situation where they disagreed with you?

A: Well, it was a normal situation but the parent unfortunately had made a big deal out of it. He felt that his child, because of his name and his standing in the community - that his child should not be subjected to any type of punishment -- that it should have been overlooked.

A: Yes. That was just not my philosophy, and I think if you talk with the fellow students that I've had they will tell you that I was hard-nosed, and that we had good discipline ... that I demanded that from them, and they understood what the rules and regulations were.

A: No, but there were rules and conduct that were acceptable at that time and we just enforced them. I think all of the children will say that there was a fairness... that there was no favoritism. They knew where they stood and everything went fine, except one or two cases.

A: During my days as principal, most of the time, not all of the time, of course, I used to wear the crepe-soled shoes and I liked to move about the building. I was on the move considerably, and I was not an office principal. I was in the classroom and out in the other parts of the school, and I saw that those crepe-soles kept my movements very quiet. And of course with my hair being gray I would come upon on them before they knew I was there, and so because of my quietness they called me the "gray ghost". Frequently as I would come upon them as they were getting ready to do something I would challenge them and say "all right now, this is what you're doing right now, and this is what you had planned to do" ... and the next thing that's going go happen". "Mr. Saunders, somebody told you that. How did you know that?" Course they didn't know it, but I had been there as a student myself.

A: Yeah. But they were very affectionate in calling me that, and to this day some of them will mention about the ''gray ghost'' and get a chuckle out of it.

Q: As you led your faculty, were you fairly relaxed in your leadership, or were you demanding? Did you let things sort of flow, and when there was a problem step in, or were you the dominant leader?

A: Let me say first, that I was not a possessive principal. That building was not my building ... it was not my school. lt was the Gar-Field High School and I never referred to it as my school. I think our philosophy was that I worked closely with head teachers, departmental heads, and we had our executive meetings and we planned curriculum of the school and philosophy and set our goals and the foundation of the goals, and then through departmental meetings the department leader then went back to departmental meetings and discussed the philosophy. They added to and deleted from. The same thing is true of the goals that were set in line with the philosophy, and then we met following that as a faculty as a whole. From that we set our philosophy and adopted that. It is a collective thing that was done by the teachers and administration. The philosophy was selected and then once we selected the philosophy and knew what we were about to do, then we set up the goals to accomplish our objectives.

Q: So you had a respect for each individual person and what that person said?

A: I've always, during my tour as principal and personnel office director and as the superintendent of schools, depended upon other people to share the burden. There was a division of responsibility and authority commensurate with it, because in my philosophy you can only be successful as long as you operate as a happy family. If you have a happy family atmosphere, then you're going to have some achievers, and you want to draw from the talents of everybody on your team. For example, when we had the principal meetings or administration meetings once a month or when I was Superintendent of Schools, I had all of the Supervisors and Directors of the Central Office present, and any of those principals or assistant principals, supervisors who had any question about any activities going on in the school system or what action the School Board may have taken or why they were doing certain things they can ask at that meeting, and from the central office staff they were always given an answer of why things were done, and so they became involved, they understood the system and why it was operating the way it was, and they became participants in it.

A: Yes, that's right. It wasn't somebody else's system ... it was theirs. I used to say to people that would come to visit with us when we were at state principals' meetings, when our school was being recognized because we were an experimental school. Anything that they wanted to be tried - curriculum wise in Prince William County - it always ended up at Gar-Field because we experimented there as a faculty. It was initiated by our faculty.

A: And when the central office staff recognized that, and so they came in and everything they wanted to try they would give it to Gar-Field ... and that was long after I left. That philosophy continued at Gar-Field. And so when I used to refer to the school that we had a "we-school" NOT a "wee school".

A: Yeah, that's right. For example, one of the experimental things that you probably have never heard of -- that we did was that in the high school you had the top five grades, 8 through 12 -- no middle school at that time...7-5 program in the county. Well, in the five grades we took the number of students that we had and we divided them by 30. Each grade level ... (pause) ... I think we took whatever number of students that we had in school and we divided that say by 30. If we had 300 students we knew we were going to have ten homerooms, and so then we took one tenth of the 8th graders and put one tenth in each home room. We took one tenth of each of the 9th grade and put in each of those rooms. Then one tenth of the sophomores, one tenth of the juniors, and one tenth of the seniors. So that each homeroom consisted of 8-9-10-11-12th graders.

A: Yes, but more importantly it was so the students could learn from other students, and also that teachers would know more about students, because that homeroom teacher was assigned to those kids for five years, and when the senior class went out they picked up a new group. But they had those kids for five consecutive years, which was part of our philosophy to know the children ... what their needs were and so that this enabled us to get to know them more as opposed to one or two teachers having a homeroom this year and then next year another different group, and so on.

Q: Did you find that these students felt closer to that particular teacher and could share their problems?

Q: So it was an extended guidance program? Is that where our advisory programs -- just the name exists now -- is that where our advisory programs came from?

Q: 'Cause we're talking about next year doing something similar to that, and having extended time when we work with smaller groups of children, trying to foster this at our school.

A: One other thing so far as the school philosophy was concerned, the faculty ... a lot of our faculty ... was stimulated to pursue additional education because they were participants in what was going on, curriculum-wise. And although I was totally supportive of a good curriculum program, I knew that I did not know as much about English as the English teachers, and I knew that I did not know as much about math as the math teachers, and I did not know as much about foreign language as foreign language teachers, and I did not know as much about social studies and history as those teachers. They became the leaders, the educational leaders - those department heads working with their groups; and so they were the ones that I depended upon for the development of the instructional program.

Q: Did you have any pressure from the State as far as minimum requirements that your particular school had to achieve? Standards of Quality?

A: Yes, we had a certain number of offerings - that was the only one. We had to offer "x" number of units of subjects. In other words we just couldn't go with reading, writing, and arithmetic. We had to have the sciences, we had to have the arts, we had to have the music, and so on. We had to have a certain number with the size school that we had. But that was never a problem in Prince William' County.

Q: That's one of the things that impressed me first when I came here -- so much was offered.

A: The children named that thing where we divided the classes and all classes were represented in the homerooms. They named that the "Mister X".

A: That's what it was called for about eight years. And in fact, one of the teachers left and went down to Northern Neck and took the same ... used the same plan there. Those were the types of things, experimental things, that we tried at the school, and when our teachers went away to get, just like you, their advancement and degree, many of our teachers came back at the end of the summer because at the time there were very few extension classes, not as prevalent as today. Most of it was during the summer, and when they did come back, they would say, "Man, those classes were a breeze", because they had been exposed to good curriculum work and good administrative work. So if they were taking, like you, an administrative course they knew about the development leadership, and they knew about the organization, they knew about the supervision, they knew about the management, or whatever it was. So it was kind of a secondhand thing. They fit right in.

Q: Must have made it very, very easy. Did you use any special techniques consciously as you were leading your school, or was it a very natural working with people?

A: I think it was caring for people and for our common good and growth. Presumably I can say that the planting of the seeds and then let them take off with it. That's the crux of my leadership. Any leadership ability I may have had was to drop the hint, plant the seeds and give them the opportunity to pick it up and go with it. If you had any merit, fine. If you didn't, we didn't lose anything.

A: That's so long ago. I've had some where teachers were wrong in their relationship and dealings with students, but in a three-way conference with the student, teacher and myself, or a four-way conference with a parent, I eased the load on the teacher by being supportive of the teacher and then following the conference then I had a private conference with the teacher -- to let them knew that I felt that a different course of action may have been better. But I don't remember where it was just flat out that somebody had to go. May have been only one that would have been near that, and that was one year that a person came in after school had been in session a month - a math teacher, and this was a man, and he was late for class. He was a heavy drinker, an alcoholic, because he came to school with whiskey on his breath or alcohol on his breath. It was noticeable to the children ... noticeable to teachers and to me. He was just a fly-by-nighter and he was not accepted by the faculty or accepted by all of the students, issued some complaints. So I had a conference with the Superintendent and he agreed that it was best to replace him. He stayed with us only a couple of months. But that would be the nearest to it.

Q: When you evaluate teachers did you have your own ideas pretty much inside, and as you go into your classroom you'd sit and watch what the teachers did and watch the students react, and this sort of thing, or would you have a checklist on things that you looked for?

A: Well, as a principal I did not have a checklist. I was looking for technique, and if there was good technique and presentation of content ... if there was a rapport between teacher and pupil and pupil and teacher ... if there was a desire for learning on the part of students ... if there was an interest, tolerance and patience on the part of the teacher for a child .... those were the techniques that I looked for; and based on that, I made my recommendation for reappointment or non-reappointment of teachers. Now if it came to a point at the end of an interview or a conference with teachers, evaluation of teachers, then I always followed that with a conference to express what I saw and get any additional comment from a teacher as to why those teachers did certain things and was not disciplining the class that day. In other words, that was understandable ... kids can't show all their wares every day. This way, it was a give and take by the two of us, and there was a feeling of satisfaction on the part of a teacher in that there was no insecurity on the part of a teacher after we had finished a conference. The teacher knew that maybe everything didn't go right but she also still felt secure. When they got to the point after several evaluations if a teacher was questionable and things were not going well, and we were not going to reappoint them, the teacher had that knowledge ... that things were on thin ice, and unless some great change took place, there would be no reappointment. At least the teachers knew where they stood.

Q: It's similar to the feeling that you had for the students too. They always knew where they stood.

Q: So you treated everyone as fairly as you could, and this is one of the things that helped the happy family.

A: Yes, insofar as the school was concerned, as I say we had a "we" school, not a "wee" school. I never felt that things had to be done my way. If you have some talent on the faculty, then you got to bring that talent out. You can't bring that out if you're telling them what to do....it's gotta be done your way. So in many cases, I learned from the faculty.

A: I really didn't feel any pressures. I felt comfortable as a teacher because I got along well with the faculty as a teacher and with kids and the community ... as a teacher ... as a principal ... the same thing - I felt quite comfortable -- all the way up the line through the Superintendency. I just felt comfortable. So I never felt any pressure or felt insecure. Don't misinterpret that or feel that I was so damn cocksure of myself because I wasn't. It was just I operated as I said before, with the feeling that teachers knew where they stood and felt the same thing was true of my superiors -- that I knew where I stood with my superiors.

Q: Did you have many teachers who complained to you about things ... felt they could come to you with problems.

Q: Most of the people felt that if they had a problem they could come and discuss it with you. Civil Rights ... busing and all sorts of things like that. Do you remember anything that occurred when you were principal that was a result of prejudices, one way or another, or something that was related to the statements and regulations of Civil Rights?

A: No, I don't remember any problems dealing with Civil Rights. Prior to, what was it, '57 .... (pause) It must have been around the '62 or '63 year...I think it was '63 when Prince William County was first integrated, and the first black child to enter high school was at Gar-Field while I was there, and the first black elementary child was at Occoquan. We knew that schools were going to be integrated in that '63 year, in the Spring of the year.

A: No, that the foresight in this of the local School Board, and the initiative of the local School Board ... there was no .... the massive resistance was still on in Virginia at that time. But Stuart Beville, Superintendent whom I mentioned before, was a farsighted person and he knew that the schools were going to have to integrate, and he knew the Federal Government was going to get involved in it. So he felt that we needed to make the move before we were forced to do so through the courts. So he asked that Gar-Field be the first name in the game -- the experimental school ... that we be the first to try it, and also because in the Eastern end of the county the patrons were more tolerant, too, than they were in the Western end.

A: Yes, well, back in those days the control of the Board of Supervisors was in the western part of the county, and they were known as the upper Prince William County, and the eastern end during those days was known as the lower end of the county. Most of the things that went on in the county went to Manassas or the western end or the upper end of the county.

A: But here we had ..... we were beginning at that time to have more of the transiency and this is where the transiency started. It was Marumsco Village. That was the first expansion of the buildings in the county. That's where it started, and that's the forerunner of Dale City. And so we had, in the Spring of that year we told the students we were going to have a black girl enrolled in school in September. And September came ... she rode the school bus and the children who rode that bus knew she was going to be on it. And we had asked (solicited) the support of the students, and when she got to the school we had some faculty members out on the campus to see that everything went well on the school bus ... to see that there was no one from the community - antagonist - were present. She came on in and got her assignment. She went on to her class without a hitch, and things went smoothly. That's not to say that maybe a student here or there didn't make a comment -- I don't know; but I wasn't conscious of any hitch that went on. That was the first part of the integration. The year before that gained a feather in Mr. Beville's cap. No, it was the year after that when I went to the central office in personnel. We, together with his leadership, then integrated the faculties of five schools in Prince William County and selected five black teachers that we felt would do a good job in five different schools throughout the county. And that went on ... and that was the beginning of the integration problem. I mean the integration of our schools. Therefore, because it was planned -- it was voluntary on the part of the School Board -- not demanded by court action, it eliminated our problem so far as integration was concerned.

Q: It sounds wonderful. After the initial integration, were there more black families that moved to Prince William County as a result of this feeling that was in the school or ......

A: I don't think so. No. There were some that moved in along with the whites, just like Marumsco Village. All of Marumsco Village and Potomac View area, all in that area there were some blacks mixed with the whites.

A: No ... started with one at Occoquan and then when we got to a larger size - 750 students at Gar-Field - then we had two assistant principals, and then when we ....... I left there in '63 ...... there were 1600 kids in school and we had three.

Q: How did you utilize the assistant principal? Did you divide the various responsibilities?

A: Yes, one of them ... the largest group was an 8th grade, and we had team teaching. We had roughly 320 kids being taught in the auditorium.

A: Yes, and I don't know whether it was 320 ... somewhere between 200-300 being taught, and there were 5 teachers that were teaching those 8th graders. And this was because of a lack of classrooms rather than going on double shift ... I usually utilized that auditorium for that and we had Hugh Browning, who is a guidance counselor at Fred Lynn now -- used to be principal at Woodbridge High School. He was coordinator or assistant principal of that group.

A: Jack Gray was another one -- assistant principal -- and he was at the high school, as the top four grades principal, and I utilized him for evaluation of the sciences and the math departments. Then I took a couple and we split several of the others. And Mr. Browning would be the coordinator to supervise the 8th grade, and Mr. Gray ..... when I left, that's when we came into the beginning of the Junior High School, and for a two-year period. Mr. Gray went to Graham Park as principal of that junior high school. Mr. Browning went to Fred Lynn as principal ...... assistant principal, I'm sorry.

A: Right. You see, at that time we were the same as we are at the present time. We got Arlington and Alexandria to the north of us, and during that time they were coming into Arlington and becoming a big county, and Fairfax was becoming spillage coming into Prince William. We were having to begin to build schools, and shortly after I left the principalship there was just so much money in the budget, and you just had to deal with it. Same thing was true when I was principal ..... there was a certain amount of money in the budget and you did with it. You worked with it. And I know that in the Science Department, the head of the department was Tom Beavers, who later on became the head of the Science Department at Woodbridge High School when they broke off from Gar-Field - in the general science classes they made projects on their own and they didn't depend on buying models and projects ... they made them themselves.

Q: Did you have any one particular decision that was very difficult to make, aside from the gentleman who liked his alcohol?

A: Well, I don't think I had any particular problems. I can't recall any. Unbelievable. During the basketball season we had to close the gyms because we were overloaded. We had more spectators than we could seat. Undoubtedly the largest schools will have the largest student bodies, but still the bleachers were never filled here today. But then they were, and we had a houseful of kids; and we had to turn away spectators. That worried me because of the potential problems. People came and wanted to see the game and couldn't get in, so maybe at football games - concerned about good attendance at games. That probably would be the only one concern that I had.

Q: What consumed most of your time? You mentioned before that you were seen a lot. Would you spend a lot of time just stopping in on classrooms and watching what was going on and being in the halls during class changes and that sort of thing?

A: Be visible. And then also I had two daughters that graduated while I was principal, and I had an understanding with them, and we worked it out cooperatively that I would not observe in a classroom in which they were a student, if they did not embarrass me as a principal, and we honored that agreement.

A: And I'll tell you a little story about being visible, and the "gray ghost" came from that because I was visible and all, but one day there would be paper on the floor. Let me come back. To make sure that things went right in school I'll talk about the faculty, being the educational leaders. We had student leaders as well, and we had a student government, and the student government had committees, and they made up their own committees. We had the girl's lavatory committee, boy's lavatory committee. We had a hall committee. We had a patrol committee, and we had just all kinds of groups that kids volunteered for, and each ... there was no writing or graffiti in the lavatories ... none whatsoever, on the stalls or anything. If there were those committees went right after it. And they went to the kids in their student assembly and said "Here's what's happening." And they went after them. Because they were more or less governing themselves, setting their own code of conduct, and there was never any paper on the floor. People just picked it up. One year it got to be a little problem. The hall patrol was not doing quite the job it had been. So one day I put a $5.00 bill in a sheet of paper and stapled it and rolled it up properly on the inside, and just before the break of class I was standing at the office door and I kicked that out into the hallway. And the kids were going by, and they passed it ... nobody did anything. And along came two kids. One of them was Gene Waggy and another was Nolie Eagle (?) and they played soccer with it. They picked it up and played soccer all the way down to the cafeteria. So I fell in behind them and walked on down, and they got down to the cafeteria and I caught up with them and I said "Lookee here. It did seem to me that you could pick this up instead of just playing soccer with it down the hallway." So I reached down and picked it up, opened it and there was that $5.00 bill. There was never any paper on the floor after that.

A: Once in a while after that ... cause that word got around ... and after that once in a while I would staple a dollar bill to a piece of paper just like you would take here, and then leave it in the hallway. I didn't stop to see who it was who picked it up ... crumple it up something like that....maybe two or three times a year ... that's all.

A: Well, that's the reason that the kids that I taught had some fond memories; and they have children who are in school now, and they tell their children about these good times that they had and what was expected of them ... what was demanded of them ... and what an appreciation they had for education.

Q: That makes a big difference. How can we improve education now? That's a loaded question ... that's a big question.

A: Well, I think you have got to get the education back into the hands of the professionals. This thing of shared responsibility with the parents and parent input -- it just seems to me that input from institutions of higher learning ... that their intent is good, but it's spreading the authority and weakening authority to the point that I think kids are not ....... there's not sufficient demand made of kids that there should be. Some kids can be motivated, and that's fine. But when kids can't be motivated, then you're going to have to put some pressure on them. You can't permit a kid -- an adolescent -- an immature person -- a non-adult -- to think for himself and act for himself totally. There's got to be some pressure brought to bear ... to direct that student so that later on when he does become an adult, when he becomes well adjusted, then that he has the tools to move forward as opposed to not having the tools and being permitted to do nothing. Then when he becomes an adult, he still has no tools to work with. I think probably that would be the main change that I would see in education.

Q: If you had been principal when the National Committee on Educational Excellence delivered their report ... do you remember that report?

A: No, I wasn't ... I remember the report but I wasn't in the school system at that time ... I was retired.

Q: Do you remember basically what the tenor of the report was? How would you have reacted if you had been principal at that time? Would you say that this committee is over-reacting or is .......?

A: Well, in fairness I can't, uh, I can't say. Let me put it that way purely because I had been out of the principalship too long.

A: You see, from '63 until that report came out, having been exposed to education -- an educational system -- I know that the principalship had changed. I know that I would have had difficulty in being a principal when that report came out because if I had stayed in the principalship I know I would have had to change to have stayed as a principal. I would not have held on to my values of education and operated the school the way we operated in the past. Therefore, when that report came out, I don't know what my reaction would have been as a principal.

A: Yes. You see, I was of the old school and when I was an administrator in the central office I was still of the old school. Some of the new things stuck (?) fine, but I didn't go overboard for it. Some things you had to go overboard for by necessity, such as the year-round school. That was a necessity.

A: That was an excellent thing, but tradition is against this, just the same as merit pay.

A: You know, your merit pay ...... I think merit pay is excellent. I tell you the people who are doing the job ...... but I know it's a subjective thing in the evaluation. Who gets the money? There's just no way you can measure a human being, objectively. There's got to be a subjective type thing. We tried that. We worked on it for three years in Prince William County - on merit pay - trying to get an understanding of merit pay ... trying to come up with some type of an evaluation criteria that would be acceptable. But it involved teachers in it. That was when I was in the central office, but teachers wouldn't buy it because they could see that maybe right now I've got a principal that I can operate with and I can accept but next year I may not have that principal. So it's a difficult thing.

A: Yes, uh huh, yeah. One of the teachers that's still in Prince William County was the head of that committee. Peggy Jones. I think she's an English teacher at either Potomac or Gar-Field. I think it must be ..... I'm not sure which one it is.

Q: There's been a little talk within the last several years about merit pay but it hasn't been discussed too much. And I'm not sure where it's going.

A: A school system as large as Prince William will never buy it. If you're going to have merit pay and I think those school divisions which have it have started out as a small division. If we had a division that had 300, 350 teachers you could then enter into merit pay. You could say, "All right, arbitrarily, working with them, we're going to do the best we can to get off on the right foot, but we're going to have it." There's no question about it. The decision's made. That's the way you're going. The School Board makes the decision, and then you go with it. And then as your system grows then I think it can be acceptable to those people. There'll be some that would not agree with it, but that is the policy of the School Board. Just like right now - you have teachers who believe in merit pay. Those good teachers up there -- they know who they are -- and they're willing to go with merit pay. Then if you had it, you had those poor teachers who would not want it if you had it, and would not want it now, some of them. Then of course you have some good teachers who don't want it.

Q: What advice would you give to a person who's considering working towards a principalship?

A: Why do you want in it? Are you, uh ... can you deal with being satisfied with student relationships from a different point of view -- not one of give and take in a classroom situation, but one from authority to student. And if you're willing to do that, then to work with your family to bring about a sharing of responsibility. I think that, in a nutshell, would be it.

Q: So if you had this to do over again you certainly would have entered the principalship and administration?

A: Yeah. I did not seek any position other than the teacher. That's the only position I ever sought. The principalship was offered to me at Occoquan and then the principalship to continue on at Gar-Field, and the central office, then the personnel and the Superintendency. So I was appreciative of those opportunities as they came my way. Certainly I would have gone into the principalship knowing what I know now ... Yes.

Q: Did you have any special preparation that you had to do before you entered the principalship?

Q: Speaking of courses, if you were able to talk to the curriculum committees at Virginia Tech for example, what sort of courses would you require that people who looking principalships would take now? If I were going for my certificate?

A: We had a course in Prince William County ... it wasn't unique with Prince William. Fairfax had it also, and prior to Prince William. And that was a principalship supervisory advancement course. Anyone, any teacher, or anyone who was interested in promotion to a principalship or supervisory or director position would take the course, volunteer to take the course ... it was an in service type thing for the county, and it was taught by the central office. I was in charge of it when I was in Personnel, and we talked about the principalship -- the leadership role of a principal .... of an assistant principal - what was expected of him ... the type of people we were looking for to fill those positions supervisory, what the roles of responsibility were of those positions. I thought that was a very down-to-earth worthwhile class ... something of that nature, that is not theory, non-theory type class.

Q: Something that's very practical. We have some questions now that are especially for retired principals. I don't if these are going to be much different from what we've talked about before or not. What do you feel is the best organizational arrangement in schools, that say have 4,000 students? If you were to have a school that had 4,000 students how would you arrange an organization to administrate? That's a bizarre number.

A: To begin with, the 4,000 student school is an impersonal school. There's no way that teachers are going to get to know teachers and students get to know students and students get to know teachers and vice versa. And administrators to know teachers, and to know teachers well ... and to know pupils period. So I suspect that the school within a school concept is as good as any, where a principal is in charge of one class and moves on up. I think that I would maybe like to experiment if I were a principal ... of going back to "Mister X", of moving some kids for some periods of time if nothing else, where there would be some mixing of grades in the high schools - 9, 10, 11, 12 - as opposed to letting all 9th graders just to know 9th graders, 1Oth graders just to know 1Oth graders. By and large I think that I'd get some up and down movement as well. Now that school within a school concept, as you know, it's all horizontal. And you've got to have some vertical. I know you get some vertical in your band and in your orchestra and your extra curricular activities -- athletics, dramatics, debates, and things of that sort, but there ought to be some others.

A: Yeah, 700-750, somewhere there. Because I found that at Gar-Field I knew every student, as principal, I knew every student in that school, even though we had some transients at that time, in '63, and the building boom was beginning in Prince William County. I knew every student in that school until we reached 1300 students. When we reached 1300 they were coming and going so fast after that up to 1625 or something like that when I left there in '63. Those last two years there were so many of them that I just could not learn them, the names of them in taking care of my responsibilities as principal. The time wasn't there for it.

A: Yes. I remember one incident they had an extension - one of three extensions - going on at that school, and a kid came in and was at the drinking fountain, and he had long hair. At that time we didn't have the long hair. We had a dress code. So I walked down and introduced myself to this kid at the drinking fountain, and said. "How are you doing". And when he saw who I was, he said. "Well, I'm glad to meet you. I'm so and so." I said. "Fine. How long have you been a student at this school?" He said, "Mr. Saunders, I'm not a student. I'm a worker". (Laughter) I was going to get on him about his hair. Cause he had bushy hair... unruly hair, so I was going to get on him. So you see, I didn't know my students. That was after they left that 1300. That same thing was true when we went to the "super" high schools - Gar-Field, Woodbridge, Stonewall Jackson, and Osbourn Park. We knew we had to go the big schools. The superintendent, Mr. Beville, that I spoke of, said "Well, if we're going to the big school, let's go to the big schools. Let's go to 4,000 pupil school - 5,000, 4 or 5 thousand." And they turned the bond issue down ... too big. So they came back with "Let's try for 3,000, 3,500, and the bond issue passed. Now after they got into to those big schools it became so impersonal - kids climbing the walls and doing everthing else -- lack of control, lack of discipline ... not knowing where the kids were going. The kids didn't know were they were going. Teachers didn't know where they were. They were roaming the hallways and everything else. So they said, "Well, the damn thing is too big." So along comes Potomac, and they said ... I was on the School Board then ... so everybody was saying, "We can't have over 1500. We want a school with 1500, where it's personal." That's what it was built for. Then after they got 1500 pupils in there and the growth was still here and everybody wanted to still go to Potomac so they said "Well, make it larger. You made the school too small." Because everybody wants to go. I think maybe you can't win in the situation. If you could you could provide the facilities ahead of time, when you could anticipate a school getting 1500 ... 1500 to 1800. There's no magic number - 1500. There's nothing magic about 1700 ... somewhere between 1500 and 2,000 students. Then when you get to that 1500 you know you're going to have another school. It would be wonderful if you had that other school built so that you could move into it. Everybody knows that's where the student overflow is going in this area, and they're going there. The school is ready for it. But nobody buys a bond issue until the schools have been overcrowded ... on double-shift ... year-round ... split shift or something.

Q: This is an interesting question. All research points to the fact that excellent schools have administrators who are actively involved in leadership for educational expectations. What are some effective techniques or strategies you have used to help involve yourself to the maximum in educational leadership?

A: Well, to begin with, I had to broaden myself so when I became a principal I began to work on my Masters Degree, and then I began to take the management courses, leadership training courses, organizational courses, the guidance courses, all dealing in the area of administration. And then I took some curriculum courses to broaden myself; and then from that I just moved into the ..... working with the faculty and moving the faculty along. And as I said earlier, just planting the seeds and trying to lead them in a movement direction, either good or bad, or whatever....not in a directed one by me, but one in which they wanted to pursue. So I'd say basically that's it.

A: No. I threw the model away. I threw the mold away. No, I had a couple of good Superintendents that I admired, but I never saw them as a principal. I just liked the way that they operated and their leadership ability, and I tried to cultivate some of those aspects, as well as being an active participant in professional organizations - State Principals' Association, National Principals' Association - to broaden my horizons.

Q: Do you consider a principalship in action as more management designed or educational leadership designed? The program that would have an effective principal would be more towards leadership or more .....

A: Let me ..... before we get to that ..... come back to that question you just had. You asked me about the leadership.

A: Let me just make this statement along that line. In athletics, having been a former athlete and a former coach, I know for a fact that athletic teams are only going to be as good as the leadership. If the coach doesn't have the ability to coach and teach skills and handle children, there's going to be an unsuccessful program. It isn't going to be the top program - athletically. The same thing is true in the area of music and fine arts. If you don't have the leadership, you're not going to have the number of people in that band. If you're just going to wait for people to come to you in that band and play, you're not going to have a great number of participants. And the same thing is true in the choral work. If you don't go out and interest people and motivate people to come into your program and display that type of leadership, you're doomed. And the same thing is true as a teacher. If you don't do the job of teaching on those children you're not going to be ...... those kids are not going to get the job done that they should do because of a lack of understanding on the part of the teacher -- the leader. And the same thing is true from a principal. If the principal doesn't have the leadership ability to lead people and doesn't have the qualities of leadership ... there's no way that school is going to get along. Now an individual can overcome some shortcomings. For example, a kid can learn despite his parent, but a whole class will not learn despite a teacher. A whole school will not learn despite a principal, and so that leadership has got to be there on the part ...... those qualities of leadership have got to be there before any school can be successful. It's gotta be there with a teacher before a class can be successful ... coach ... whatever it may be.

Q: And those are the feelings of acceptance, warmth and enthusiasm, and general appreciation -- a basic liking of the person.

A: That's right, and be able to teach those skills the skills of grammar. If you don't know the skills of grammar, you're not going to speak correctly. If you don't have a teacher who can teach those in a manner that the kids are motivated and want it as opposed to "Well, here it is. Get it if you want it, and if you don't want it, that's too bad." I just wanted to throw that out because I feel very strongly about that.

Q: Well, this is the last question. And it has to do with recent ideas that public schools should be much more like businesses, and that things should be designed more the way businesses and private sector are. Do you feel that this would improve education or do you think that it would create a lot of problems?

A: I think if we did only propagate the private schools because that's the private school philosophy, and they operate them as a business. And there's the constitution that we have to be concerned with and that is that we shall educate all of the children. Private schools don't have that responsibility. Public schools do, and therefore I think we have to take all of the people and train them and in doing that you have all types of children, all different types of desires, all different types of needs ... and therefore, we just could not operate as a business. Now, the only way you could get back to that would be the closer and the more business-like you became the more frugal you have to become. You're going to have to show a profit; and therefore, you're going to eliminate kids from your school. Therefore, you're not meeting the constitutional requirements of training for all the kids.

Q: I see your point. Is there anything that you can think of that you would like to share with me?

A: Yes. As a ..... since this is a course in administration, and you may have some aspirations to be a principal or assistant principal, supervisor or assistant superintendent or superintendent of schools -- whatever -- you may want to get out of education and become a businessman, with a business of your own -- whatever your aspirations are -- whatever you become -- let me say that as you administer that unit, whatever it is, that class - whatever - that organization that you have, there are three component parts to be successful. One of them is that you've got to have the ability to organize. You have an automobile and I'll use as an example. You've got an automobile. It's got a carburetor here. It's got four wheels over there. It's got ... it used to have a chassis ... they don't have a chassis any more, and they've got fenders over here ... and it's got the body here, and we've got pistons here ... and scattered all around all parts of the automobile. Now all those parts out there are not worth a damn as one to itself. But when you organize and you pull that carburetor in here and you attach it to the engine and you put that cylinder in that engine ... and you put those wheels on the axles ... and you put those fenders on, and you put that body on, you've organized it so that you now have an automobile. This now becomes useful. And whatever it is that you're dealing with in your school -- all of your kids --you've got all of those kids ... you've got all these teachers. They're all there but if you don't organize them you don't have anything. All right now, once you have all of that, then you've got to have a second thing. You've got to supervise them. Now once you have that automobile all put together, then that automobile is all together but it isn't going to do anything. For it to be useful you have to have somebody behind the wheel. Therefore, you have to see that it has plenty of gas -- your supervisor. If it just stays there, it isn't going to gas itself. You have to change the oil on that automobile. You have to drive it. You have to wash it sometimes, and you have to supervise it to see that it needs gas, that it needs oil. This job that you have in that school with all these kids -- you've got to supervise those teachers. You've got to supervise all those kids and your custodial staff and your building -- to know -- to make it function to be successful. Or that business, whatever it is. And the third thing is management. You've got to manage that thing ... it won't manage itself. And you've got to have somebody to drive it down the highway. If you're going out from here ... out to the highway, you're going up the highway ... you've got to drive it, for that thing to be useful to you. And you've got to do the management of your school... know where it's going. That's right. And if you don't have any philosophy out here -- what you want to accomplish ... if you don't have some goals to reach ... if you just have a philosophy and say, "Well that's what we want to do." That's fine. But if you don't have the leadership to see that those goals are set up so that you work towards those ... if you just have philosophy up here and no goals, then that's a haphazard way to get there. You may reach them and you may not, because you're just going day by day -- whatever you're doing -- and the end of the year, then you look, "Well, here's our philosophy. Did we live up to this? No we didn't." And then this, this, this, we didn't. But now when you set the goals here, these are the things we want to accomplish under that philosophy. Now we can accomplish that philosophy up here, and the same thing is true with management. So in any course you take in administration - anything else - you look at those three things -- organization, management and supervision...think about that automobile. All those things that are out on the floor -- no good, until you manage them. Put them together and then organization - organizing -- and then the other one -- maintenance. See that it's all up to date ... and the supervisor - take it out here and see that it moves in the direction to your goal whatever your goal is -- then see it through ... philosophy. That's the key I told you that I would give you as a young up and coming administrator. Now whatever you do you keep those things in mind. When you take your course, and I don't care what course it is -- management, leadership, anything. You keep those things in mind as you go through the course and apply those to your course. And you'll find that you're well on the road to successfully completing the course. The same thing is true if you have a principal or a teacher, or a superintendent - without those three things in your conscious mind -- that to be successful I've got to have those three things. 'Cause your college professor will tell you -- the three component parts of administration - organization, management, and supervision. They're not going to come right out and tell you that until you take administration post graduate or something. I don't know what.