Ladeadrick “Bob” Jackson, principal of Meadowcreek High, conceived and embraced an admirable education creed. “Rigor with nurture,” he said.
Let’s take liberty and surmise that translates into a boatload of — excuse the simplicity — “stuff.” Teach and stay on task. Show love and tough love. Don’t denigrate. Think how you, the teacher, want to be treated, and what should be demanded of every student.
Late Tuesday, I happened to drive by the right place at the right time. Hundreds of students milled around the Meadowcreek campus, apparently in similar accord. Initially, social media spread the news. Rumors and doubts swirled.
Eventually, the Gwinnett County School system somehow confirmed a hard truth that took hold of the Norcross community. Jackson, high school principal since 2006, a get-the-job done educator and leader who asked an entire campus to embrace the power of self, to prove otherwise to doubters, had died on campus Monday. At 51, his heart ruptured, according to an article in the Gwinnett Daily Post.
“He was such a leader,” said Meadowcreek wrestling coach Rich Schumacher, in attendance at Tuesday’s impromptu tribute.
“He was the right person for the right time to make things happen. In the lunchroom, he was there. Anybody who had issues, whether they were good or bad, he was there.”
Ghettocreek — that’s what some people in the community called Meadowcreek. Still do. Often it wasn’t so much of what they knew about the school, just pure perception. Just what they imagined a mostly minority campus — where English is not the primary language for hundreds of the 2,400 or so students — to be.
Test scores don’t rival those of many Gwinnett schools, so it was a big deal when, in 2009 and 2010, Meadowcreek met “adequate yearly progress” goals mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. It failed to do so in 2011, but enough about that. Test scores, the importance placed on them, their use as the definitive assessment tool, can dull the senses. They do mine.
Like Schumacher said: “The other side of the coin is that they keep raising the standards, raising the bar,” he said, stating more fact than excuse.
So, we won’t drum on about benchmarks and standardized tests today. We pay tribute to an educator who apparently had heart. How else to explain the horde of students, 400 or so, faculty included, who gathered Tuesday to mourn?
No one stood prouder than Jackson when the Gwinnett public school system won the 2011 Broad Prize, a declaration that it was the No. 1 urban school district in America. With it came scholarships, a benefit to several Meadowcreek students.
“I am ecstatic that our [county’s students] can receive $1 million in scholarships,” he said at the time. “It is a testament to the good work that is going on. ... We have a laser focus on what our kids need.”
Before leaving campus Tuesday, Schumacher looked once more at the throng of talking, hugging students.
“Quite a man,” he said.
Quite an educator.
Rick Badie, an Opinion columnist, is based in Gwinnett. Reach him at rbadie@ajc.com or 770-263-3875.
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