BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Crystal Williams had already made her home in Bradford County. Now, she’s ready to start a career there as the new assistant principal at Bradford High School
“I’m really excited,” said Williams, who’s entering her 12th year in education. “I’m very thankful that the opportunity came about.”
Williams, who was previously the assistant principal at Ocala’s Liberty Middle School, has spent her entire career in education in Marion and Sumter counties. She and her husband, Josh, and their three children moved to Bradford County last summer. Williams said she was definitely interested in the BHS job when it was posted, but wasn’t sure at first if she’d apply.
“I thought they probably already had someone in mind,” she said, “but I did a lot of praying on it and decided to apply.
“When everything worked out, it feels like the place to be. Everything just feels right.”
The phrase “everything just feels right” could’ve been uttered by Williams earlier in her life, when she decided that her career was in education.
Fulfilling her passion
When she was a young child, Williams was convinced that she would grow up to do something with art. She fell in love with math as she got older and then had thoughts of becoming an architect.
“During junior year of high school, I actually shadowed a local architect in the Orange Park area,” said Williams, a Fleming Island High School graduate. “It was far from what I expected.”
That’s when Williams decided to be a math teacher. She had already been teaching others as she was involved in her school’s Mu Alpha Theta math-tutoring program.
“I had started realizing through that after-school tutoring program that I really had a passion for helping people understand math and feel confident with math. I also started to see that connection between the teacher and the student understanding.”
Yet Williams said she tried to talk herself out of becoming a teacher, intending to work toward a business degree when she entered college.
“I realized that I wasn’t going with my passion,” she said. “I wasn’t following my heart, so I switched to math. Everything felt at peace. I knew I was doing what I was supposed to do.”
Williams earned her bachelor’s degree at St. Leo University, which offers pre-internships for up-and-coming teachers, where they spend one day a week in a classroom.
“In Marion County, there were several schools across the district,” Williams said. “I basically got to go to a different middle school each semester and see the difference in teaching styles and administrative styles.
“Part of the experience was to do something they call ‘grand rounds.’ Even though you have the teacher you’re assigned to, you spend a day going to several different teachers’ classrooms to observe.”
It was a great experience, as was her final, full-time internship, which took place at Belleview Middle School.
“I had a great internship teacher who really let me take over,” Williams said. “A lot of people, in their internships, don’t get to really take over. My intern teacher taught me and then me try.”
Another benefit of her final internship was that she was able to familiarize herself with Belleview Middle School, which is where her career began after graduation.
“I was lucky enough to already know the school and know some of the staff members,” Williams said. “It felt very natural. Of course, like anything new, there were growing pains, having to learn different things, with different challenges coming and going, but there was a great support system there.”
Greater impact
Williams said she knew early on she wanted to go into administration. In fact, she began working toward her master’s degree (which she also earned at St. Leo) after the second year of her eight-year teaching career.
“I’ve always had this strong feeling that the success of the student is really rooted in their relationship with their teacher,” Williams said. “The success of that teacher is very important. That’s where the administration really plays a big role. That’s where that passion and drive come from. I felt like if I could be that administrator to support those teachers, then I could have a bigger impact on student success.”
During her final year in the classroom (which was at the high-school level), Williams taught geometry for three periods in the morning. Then, she spent three periods serving as an instructional coach in the math department.
Williams became a full-time instructional coach the following year at Liberty Middle School. Though the school only had two assistant principals, Williams said the joke was that she was the third AP.
In all seriousness, though, she was allowed to perform many administrative duties.
“That’s where I started to really get hands-on leadership experience,” Williams said, adding, “They called me a quasi-administrator, but they really let me do all the things. I got to experience all the different pieces of the school I was not able to before.”
Liberty was where she developed into the administrator she is today, Williams said. She eventually became the testing coordinator, fulfilling those duties along with instructional coaching.
Two years prior to being hired as BHS assistant principal, Williams was hired as Liberty Middle School’s AP of discipline after the person occupying that position left shortly after the school year began. Williams said the fact she was already at the school didn’t mean she was the automatic choice to step into that role. She and other applicants had to appear in front of a panel of various school members for interviews. She then had to be nominated as a finalist, which resulted in interviewing with the superintendent of schools.
“Our principal had no say,” Williams said, adding, “Some people have that misconception that you just get the position, but that’s not how they had it structured there. I appreciated that.”
Williams said she thought she had a good understanding of what an assistant principal did based upon her previous roles, but as the assistant principal of discipline, she saw a whole other side of administration.
“It was a constant learning curve,” she said. “I would say I learned something new every day. I was lucky that I had a team of people I could talk to and have open communication with.”
Her second year presented a leap forward, based on those previous year’s experiences and the fact she got to work that summer in the role of an AP.
“Last year, I really felt like I started to move to the next level,” Williams said. “OK. I’ve figured out the basics. Now, I can start to plan and develop and grow and try to help the school move forward.”
A new start
Bradford High School enters the school year with a new assistant principal and principal, though Principal Chris Coffey is no stranger, having filled Williams’ role the previous five years.
“I’m really excited about working with Chris,” Williams said. “He’s very knowledgeable. He’s part of this community. I’m really excited to work with him and learn from him.
“I feel like we complement each other very well in our goals and work ethic and what we want to accomplish here for our students.”
Williams probably wouldn’t have been in position to be a complement to Coffey if not for the fact her family moved to Bradford County, taking the advantage to buy property that had been in her husband’s family. Husband Josh’s parents (Jerry and Christie) both grew up in Bradford and are graduates of BHS. Williams admitted it’s “very cool” to now be working at the school her in-laws attended.
Now, she takes on the task of settling in and getting to know the ins and outs of BHS. Generally speaking, not much changes in the role of assistant principal from one school to another, but differences in how things are done do exist.
“The challenges would be learning different systems. Even though the role of assistant principal is very similar, it’s different systems, different computer programs,” Williams said, adding, “Once I start doing it, I will know it. I’m very eager to be in that place where I’m feeling confident that I know all of the programs and all of the pieces that we use here at Bradford.”
Learning the nuances of the job leads to being in a better position to positively impact students.
“We definitely have a clear goal of raising student proficiency. I’m very excited about working with new teachers and our staff on our school culture and helping Bradford High School become a B school. Then, we want to become an A school.”
Williams, of course, is getting to know everyone who works at BHS. She looks forward to getting to know the students, saying it’s important to be able to address students by name. If an administrator can ask a student how their day is going, how their football game went, etc., it lets them know that someone is invested in them and cares about them.
“It makes a difference in their relationship with you,” Williams said.
As an administrator, Williams said that’s one of the things that makes a day successful — to witness a staff member having a meaningful conversation with a student. Another thing that makes a day successful is walking into a classroom and seeing students engaged.
“They’re not just compliant, but they’re actually collaborating, they’re thinking and they’re learning, and it’s preparing them to be successful,” Williams said. “That is definitely something that helps you feel like the day was successful.”
When it comes to visiting classrooms, Williams she and Coffey have a goal of dropping in on every class during the first two days of school.
“Those first few days can set the tone for the rest of the year,” Williams said. “It can really have an impact on the success of the school year.”
