BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Being recognized is nothing new for Bradford Middle School Safety Paraprofessional James McNeal. Within the last five years, he’s been voted as the school’s Employee of the Year.
This year, though, he wasn’t just voted the best at BMS. He was voted the district-wide Employee of the Year.
“It was very shocking,” McNeal said, adding, “Somebody likes me. Somebody definitely likes me.”
Not only does somebody like him. Somebody — a lot of people, actually — likes what’s going on at BMS, as the school’s Ashley Dowd was also named the district’s Teacher of the Year.
“That was very special we did it in the same year,” McNeal said. “It lets us know how special we are at Bradford Middle School.”
The man who most people know as “Coach Bat” said the honors bestowed upon him and Dowd aren’t about them.
“It’s about the kids,” McNeal said.
BMS Principal Danielle Rosson said, “It’s a huge honor to have a high-quality staff on our campus. I can honestly say that both Coach Bat and Ms. Dowd are focused. Their focus is on our students. They are really, really the center of our campus. They both have very strong relationships with all of our students.”
McNeal’s relationships with Bradford youth were in existence before he became Bradford Middle School’s safety paraprofessional. He coached baseball and football for the school.
He worked previously at the University of Florida, but McNeal was encouraged to work at BMS when he was the school’s head football coach. The feeling was that it benefited the student-athletes to have their head coach on campus.
McNeal’s now been working full time at BMS for eight years. He’s still impacting young lives, but the impact is greater than it was when he was just coaching.
“I get to affect everybody, including girls,” McNeal said, adding, “It’s like an overall effect versus the coaching, where I only got the boys.”
As the safety paraprofessional, McNeal said some of his duties include making sure the school is up to date on lockdown and fire-drill procedures. However, he also handles a lot of discipline issues, removes students from class when they’re being disruptive and makes sure students are where they’re supposed to be.
Being involved with discipline puts him in contact a lot with teachers, which he believes has helped him be named School-Related Employee of the Year multiple times.
“I think one of the reasons I keep getting voted for it, to be honest with you, is I’m the one who interacts with most of the teachers around campus,” McNeal said.
McNeal said he enjoys being around middle school students and all the things they have going on in their lives, whether it’s adapting to a school environment different from the one they were used to at the elementary level or dealing with the early stages of the transition from adolescence into adulthood.
“I guess I like to be in the middle of all that and try to control it,” he said.
McNeal said it’s fulfilling when a former BMS student or someone he used to coach takes the time to approach him in public and talk to him.
“It just really lets you know you had an impact on their life,” he said. “If you didn’t do anything for them, they aren’t going to come up to you like that.”
In a sense, the students he interacts with and gets to know become like his own children. McNeal said his biological children may be grown, but he’s still got a reason to attend high school graduation every year.
“I really look forward to their graduation. I love to see a kid who came through (BMS) and remembers me, and I remember them when they were here,” McNeal said, adding, “I possibly made a difference in their lives. What they’re doing now they might not have done if I hadn’t put them on that right path.”
