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Her legacy is teaching

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By Rob Rogers

Retiring: Sausalito Marin City School principal and teacher Ruby Sullivan Wilson is escorted past the Balboa High ROTC Color Guard by her husband, Henry, on Sunday at a celebration at the Manzanita Rec Center in Marin City. Wilson is retiring after 34 years as an educator. (IJ photo/Alan Dep)

Ruby Sullivan Wilson begins the morning of every school day making sure that students at Bayside Elementary get breakfast and a poem.
Both, she believes, are crucial for her students' future health and well-being.

"It's something that I say a lot, but I want my students to remember this," said Wilson, the principal of both Bayside Elementary in Sausalito and Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City. "They need to know as much as they can so that they can take care of themselves. Because only then will they be able to take care of others, to make a contribution to the community and the world."

Wilson has kept up her tradition of morning poetry for the last 34 years - first as a classroom teacher, and, since 2000, as principal of both schools. It's an idea she borrowed from one of her own teachers, Nathaniel Hartman, and it's one of the reasons she enjoys coming to work every day.

Next month, Wilson and

Ruby Sullivan Wilson, a Sausalito Marin City School principal/teacher, retiring after 34 years. (IJ photo/Alan Dep)

her students will read their last poem together. The principal and community leader plans to retire at the end of the school year.

On Sunday, teachers, former students and admirers from Marin City, Sausalito and across the county gathered at the Manzanita Recreation Center to honor a woman many call an inspiring leader.

"For young women like us, she's a great inspiration," said Ericka Erickson, program director for the Marin Grassroots Leadership Network. "She's always working to benefit the kids."

During Wilson's first year as principal, Bayside Elementary saw its Academic Performance Index scores rise by 106 points, making it the second-most improved school in the Bay Area for 2001. Scores at Bayside have jumped by a total of 138 points during Wilson's tenure, while those at Martin Luther King Jr. Academy have climbed by 68 points.

"Mrs. Wilson more than doubled our scores upon becoming principal, and placed us on a trajectory toward Vision 900," said George Stratigos, a trustee for the Sausalito-Marin City school board. "She really cares about her schools, and she has an absolutely unshakable belief in the children. She's an institution in this community."

Vision 900 refers to the district's hoped-for 900 API score on a scale of 200 to 1,000. The district earned an API of 692 this year. While the score is the lowest of Marin's traditional school districts, it is significantly higher than three years ago, when Sausalito Marin City's scores were in the 300 range.

To Wilson, her students'API scores are more than a measure of their academic skills. They're a record of their growth as human beings.

"When the scores stay the same from one year to the next, it means the students have grown by a year," she said. "When those scores go up, it means those students have grown a lot more than was expected of them. I don't think a lot of people appreciate that."

Although she came from a family of educators, Wilson never expected to become a teacher. Growing up near Greenville, S.C., Wilson avoided any mention of teaching until she was a sophomore at Howard University.

"That's when a friend of mine said, 'You need to take some education courses,' " Wilson laughed. "I did, and I enjoyed it so much that I've been doing it ever since."

Wilson was a middle school science teacher in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia before coming to Marin County in 1972. She was new to the area and she didn't think she would be around long.

"We were going through a reduction in staff, and as the last hired, I thought I'd be first to go," she said.

Instead, the mother of three became an award-winning educator, recognized with the Marin County Office of Education's Golden Bell Award, the Alpha Delta Kappa Society's Outstanding Teacher Award, Marin City Community's Educator-Mother of the Year Award, and a Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award from the Grassroots Leadership Network.

Sunday's event included presentations by county Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke, the Balboa High School ROTC Color Guard, Girls' Drill Team and Drum Corps and many of Wilson's former students - including several from her elementary school class of 1972.

"I've known her since before my son was in her kindergarten class, and now he'll be 13," said Felecia Gaston, who helped organize the event. "And she's always been the same. She's a sweet, powerful woman who instills academic skills in all kids. She has a presence at school that I'm really going to miss."

Wilson's admirers credit her with creating an atmosphere at both her schools that was peaceful, disciplined, safe, yet challenging. Those words describe Wilson herself, LaTanya Wiggins said.

"What I really admire about her is that she doesn't get freaked out. She always kept a cool head," says Wiggins, whose children attend Wilson's schools.

That's hardly surprising, given that Wilson's favorite poem is Rudyard Kipling's "If." As Wilson's students know, the poet's advice on how to live a successful life begins, "If you can keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."

Contact Rob Rogers via e-mail at rrogers@marinij.com

http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_3797807#

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