8News Exclusive: Petersburg City Public Schools Superintendent discusses plans for tenure

PETERSBURG, Va. (WRIC) — Exactly one week after being named superintendent of Petersburg City Public Schools, Yolonda Brown sat down with the 8News team to discuss her hopes and plans for her new tenure.

Brown has served in the role of acting superintendent, and she was named and assumed her new role of superintendent Oct. 30, which officially began on Nov. 1.

The school division has seen a resignation from one superintendent, Tamara Sterling—back in March of this year followed by a brief tenure from former acting superintendent, John Farrely, who stepped down back in June.

Brown took over as acting superintendent before getting the job permanently.

The following topics were discussed with Brown:

Did you know that you'd be superintendent?

"I didn't know it was going to automatically be me that was never, ever communicated," Brown said. "I came into the role as acting and I understood that I would have to interview for the role. I didn't know all the mechanics of how it would go, but I did know that I would be considered for the role."

Why Petersburg?

"I'll be very honest. I am a woman of faith, and I believe that everything in life happens the way they're supposed to happen," Brown said. "I did spend my entire educational career in Atlanta Public Schools— in Atlanta, and it was a wonderful experience, a large urban district that has very similar challenges. But I think there's always a point in your life when you say, 'how do I expand my purpose even more?'"

"The draw for me is that Petersburg is full of black and brown kids who deserve the very best and have an opportunity to soar, and so I believe that chances like this come around one time in a lifetime and when it comes, it may not look the way you think it should look or in the manner that it came through an acting role," Brown said. "But I do believe that nothing happens by chance, and so people will hear me have talked about the fact that I love the quote by Aristotle that says: 'where your talents and the needs of the world cross, therein lies your vocation.' And so Petersburg is the perfect mix of urban complexity in a smaller town package."

Skepticism about Brown's length of time in the role

"What I say to people is the biggest indicator of what people will do in the future is what they've done in the past," she said. "And so I spent my entire career in one school division or one school district, Atlanta. And so I didn't go and come back. I have that planted in myself firmly and being there so that you see the work through. And I know how important that is."

Update on 100-Day Plan: A New Era of Visible Learning, Accountability and Care for All

"I'll say it's about, you know, 95% finished," Brown said. "And so we have a few more days. There are a couple of things that are challenges. A lot of the plan included a lot of assessments, a lot of review of systems, processes, procedures, a lot of review of what's happening in structurally in the division, who we hired, who do we have in the division, how we spend our money, how have we kept up our buildings, what are the challenges?"

What are three critical issues that you believe are plaguing the division?

• "Petersburg has had so much transition and church in leadership, not just at the superintendent level, but even at the school level," Brown said. "At the school based level, it's created inconsistency and is created opportunities for systems, structures, processes and procedures to be eliminated or nonexistent is what I'll say."
• "About 30% of our staff is not there working on licensure," Brown explained. "Teachers in classrooms who want to be there helping our kids. But we're working on licensure because that's where you're learning all the nuances of teaching pedagogy, best practices for teaching. And so that licensure piece and getting teachers in classrooms is an ongoing challenge."
• "Chronic absenteeism of students—you can put things in place, you can bring on new curriculum, you can do all of those things, give teachers the capacity to teach at high levels," she said.

Cell phones in schools

"What I want to assure parents is, first of all, I want to remind parents that the whole purpose of the Yonder pouches is to help kids focus in school, because we know that cell phones I love my cell phone, kids love their cell phones, but the teaching and learning environment is so critical that we need the attention of kids," Brown said. "In every moment, what I'll say is, in order to reassure parents, that means we have to have structures in place so that we can communicate with parents very quickly so that when something does arise that the school division can have a mechanism and we're having to work on that."

Mental Health

• "We have licensed mental health counselors on staff, and so that's very different—they sit in our room with our specialist special education team now, but they're licensed clinical counselors that are for kids are able to leverage them in the schools so that when they need that immediate support, they have it from a licensed counselor, but also staff members can leverage it as well," Brown said.
• "What we've done is we've adopted a new curriculum just a few weeks ago called 'Character Strong,' and so we're going to implement it from elementary through high school," Brown said.

What goes into 'Character Strong?'

"The curriculum pieces will allow us to be able to teach kids how to self-regulate," Brown said. "They'll be able to teach kids how to interact and how to have better relationships with their peers and with the kids and teach them key life skills. And so helping kids with that social emotional piece allows them to connect with adults."

Brown says the 100-day plan should be complete in the next week.