March 2022
As we come to the end of our celebration of Women's History Month, we wanted to make sure you saw the web stories of some of the incredible women who are members of this great union and one trailblazer who broke down the glass ceiling for women as school leaders.
Women's History Month is a time to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital roles women play in America and for us, in our schools.
Phebe W. Sudlow
Educator Broke National Gender Barriers in 19th Century
Phebe W. Sudlow was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1831. When she was 4, her family moved to Nelsonville, Ohio, where she began school in a log cabin and then moved to a special academy in Athens, Ohio. At age 15, Sudlow started teaching in the same log cabin in which she had attended school.
After moving around, she landed in Iowa as a teacher, then became an assistant principal of two schools. In 1860, Sudlow became the first woman public school principal in the United States. Although she earned this position, she was paid a lower wage than male principals, which she argued with the school board about—and was then paid an equal wage.
Fourteen years after she become a principal, Sudlow was the first woman in the nation's history to be appointed superintendent of a public school system.
A revolution in consciousness awaited Cynthia Larkin when she left the Great Central Valley town of Tracy, California, and arrived at San Diego State University. After four years at Tracy High, where she was one of a handful of Black students, she enrolled in Dr. Charles Toombs’ African American literature class at SDSU and woke to “the Black experience in education.”
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When Dr. Tiffany Tresler looks back on her last five years as principal of Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School (TRES) in Howard County, Maryland, she is particularly happy about achievements in reading growth and in special education programming. More than that, she is aware that her achievements at Triadelphia and throughout her career have been partly inspired by her brothers, who never got through high school. Ever since, she has been fulfilling a promise she made to herself when she stumbled into elementary education while seeking a degree in biology as a pre-med student.
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There came a moment well into the pandemic when award-winning principal Pamela A. Kirk glanced back at her stellar career in education, took a close look at her retirement fund, and made a decision she had expected to make three to six years from now. After considering the constant stress and pressure of being a principal juggling all the crazy logistics of the COVID-19 years, she carefully planned her exit from Southmoor Elementary School in Denver, put her house on the market, and bought a new one in the college town of Laramie, Wyoming.
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One of Principal Chevelle Lampkin’s students at National Academy Foundation School of Baltimore (NAF) decided to create a bench in the Memorial Garden where other students could sit if they were feeling lonely. The student, a boy named Kayontae Taylor, hoped that sitting on that bench would be a signal to others that company was welcome and needed. The garden and Kayontae’s bench all came under the auspices of Rotary International’s Interact Club, which Chevelle introduced before the pandemic of 2020–21 ravaged the city of Baltimore.
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