“I don’t get why everybody leaves.” Naeema Carter ’24MSA remembers one of her elementary school students telling her that after he learned yet another teacher would be departing their school.
“He had this look on his face that broke my heart,” Carter said. “In that moment, I decided that I was going to find a way to be the one who doesn’t.”
Carter had the rare opportunity to be that student’s teacher from first grade through third grade, remaining as a consistent presence in his life. After six years in the classroom, she began to look into what staying in education would mean for her going forward and decided that entering the field of school administration would allow her to ensure even more students feel cared for and successful.
“I was like, ‘Well, I can help one class do that,’” Carter said. “Or, I can go and learn to be a school administrator and I can have a whole school do that. So here we are. Hopefully, I can help a school do that one day.”
As a graduate student in the NC State College of Education’s principal preparation program, Carter has already made progress in achieving that goal. During her first year, she completed courses, mostly online, while working in the classroom full time as a teacher, and then this past academic year, she was placed at Willow Springs Elementary School in Wake County, where she served as an assistant principal intern.
“It has been an amazing year of learning from some of the best leaders that I’ve ever met, just about how to be a school administrator and how to be a principal and how to do the job,” Carter said. “
This year has not been without its challenges, too. In February, Carter was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer. Unsure if she would be able to attend her graduation ceremony, members of the College of Education’s principal preparation program, as well as the Willow Springs Elementary School leadership team, organized a special surprise “clap out” to celebrate Carter’s journey as an educator.
“They lined up in the gym, all the way down to the kindergarten and fourth grade hallway, all through the entrance of the school,” Carter said. “We just got to just walk around, and they were clapping and cheering and just celebrating with me … Having that opportunity to just celebrate with the little people who mean the most to me, it was amazing.”
Her mother, son and members of her graduating cohort, in full regalia, were also there to join in on her parade.
“Having these wonderful people come in and show that we’re still behind you, you can still get across the finish line; you’re still going to graduate — even if your graduation is here in the elementary school library, we’re still going to do it — I just can’t put that into words,” Carter said.
Meet Naeema:
Hometown: Matthews, North Carolina
Degree: Master of School Administration
Why did you choose the NC State College of Education?
I wanted to make sure that I was learning from the absolute best minds because my goal as a school leader is to help as many kids as I can. The innovative ways that NC State thinks about doing things really aligned with my own personal values. For our program, one of the things that they heavily focus on is starting with heart. Really, just keeping in mind the fact that every individual holds value, just inherent value, and how do we help people grow and guide people to where they need to be while still respecting their inherent value.
I had read about that, and I went to the information session, and I left with goosebumps. I’m like, that is who I am as a person. I so fully believe in starting with heart and leading from the heart, and learning from people who also share that belief — I applied to no other programs. It was the only program for me. I was going to apply 10 times if I had to. Luckily, I got it on the first try.
What’s your next step? What do you have planned after graduation?
I really just want to be able to find a school where I can get in and support the kids and help them feel how important they are in the world and help teachers create a learning environment where students genuinely love to go to school. I really just want to help.
How has the College of Education prepared you for that next step?
The courses that we took — I don’t know how they did it — aligned so well with the real-life circumstances that I was experiencing In the classroom or in my internship. For example, when we were talking about budget, we were also talking about it in my internship at the same time. The way that they aligned all their courses with the flow of the school year made all of the learning very organic.
We had really wonderful professors who are so well versed in their field areas and who were able to make connections that I personally wouldn’t have been able to get from a book.
In addition, our program is special because we have executive coaches. So our executive coaches are people who have been very influential or changed the educational atmosphere in some way. And then they’ve continued to give back to the educational community by mentoring us and helping us. The fact that we have those executive coaches, on top of our mentors and our program directors and our professors, is just another layer of support that we have to make sure that we’re being guided in the correct direction.
My cohort was also amazing and vital to my success. That is a unique part of our program, and I couldn’t have done it without them. All of our classes were completed in a cohort, and we were able to experience live sessions together as well. Having a group of like-minded professionals to learn with has pushed me and helped me grow as an individual and leader.
What do you hope to accomplish in your field?
I want to help kids; I want to help adults help kids, and I want families to feel supported and valued within their community because they are valuable. In our world, where everything can be very divisive, I want to be in a school or in an area where that’s not the case, where we can come to school, and we can work together, and we can help children reach their full potential in our changing world because that’s what they deserve. They deserve to have the absolute best foot forward. I want to make the world better, one school at a time.
Do you have a favorite memory from your time in the College of Education?
For me personally, I think that the “clap out” was so impactful because it wasn’t just educational. They lived by the philosophy that they teach, right? Everybody can say something, but the fact that they truly lived in to leading from the heart and understanding my own personal situation, with being diagnosed with breast cancer, not knowing how that’s going to affect everything. And then, being able to see all these people come around me and just have this physical outpouring of love, appreciation and encouragement — that has been one of the top experiences of my life.
Why did you choose education?
I loved my teachers. I was a child who really, really struggled with reading when I was little. It was hard for me; you couldn’t pay me to do it. Then, my first grade teacher – I’ll never forget her name was Mrs. Smiley – she was literal sunshine on the Earth, and she just really changed so much about how I viewed school. And then I had another amazing teacher, Mrs. Sonoski, in second and fifth grade, and then Mrs. Shoup, in seventh grade.
Those three women just really shifted my own perspective of myself, and it made me realize the impact that school can have to help children feel successful when they don’t. I wanted to give that to kids. I want to help them find their areas of success because sometimes your areas of success are reading and math and all that stuff, but there’s so many other things, right? Maybe you’re an amazing friend. Maybe you’re really good at writing. Maybe you’re really good at drawing pictures or being very creative or making some amazing architectural thing out of Legos that I would have never thought about. I really just like to see them be successful.
- Categories:
