Teaching in tandem

When school resumes in two weeks, parents will notice not one but two principals welcoming their little ones back to East Avenue Primary.

It is a non-traditional setup for sure, but one that is working well, according to both administrators.

“We make a good team,” says Principal Christi Leonhardt, current head of the campus.

Her counterpart, Dr. Damaris Womack, agreed.

The system is less experiment and more necessity. Leonhardt is to become the principal for the new Gonzales Primary Academy when it opens at the start of 2016. Thus, she will spend the first semester of the year at East Avenue mentoring Womack before the big move.

“So she is going to be showing me the ropes around. And she’s been doing a fabulous job,” Womack said.

Letters were sent to parents back in May letting them know of the change. An update will be mailed soon, and they want everything to run as smoothly as possible during the campus transition for the Pre-K kids.

Womack has been with the school district for three years, coming from her previous stint as the associate principal of Gonzales High School. She initially went into teaching— which was a personal passion for her— and enjoys learning and discovering new things and passing that along to others.

“That’s just a special feeling for me,” she said.

Along the way, Womack was urged to explore new ideas and attended many workshops where she brought valuable information back to campus. That propelled her into more leadership roles and she soon found herself in a department chair position and worked her way up from there.

As a principal, Womack says there are many facets that one has to deal with, not only in education but also understanding how to work with other professionals on campus. She said that one has to be well-rounded to take on that type of leadership position.

Womack is also a Panamanian native and believes that her ability to speak Spanish will be an advantage on the bilingual campus. It should help in communicating with parents who need to express their concerns or delights with their child’s education.

For an educator that is moving from one side of the campus to the other in terms of age, she welcomes the new opportunity and is ready to go once that first bell rings. The school is welcoming new teachers this week—just four of them— so there will be a lot of familiar faces on the first day, which seems to be a trend at GISD. Something that Womack says could be attributed to the other principal on campus.

“It is actually a fabulous, fabulous moment right now,” she said.

East Avenue will host a “Meet the Teacher” day on Aug. 20 from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. where parents can get familiar with their new principal. The first day of school, as if you need reminding, is Aug. 24.