THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 24, 1994 TAG: 9412240352
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BUXTON LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
There are two new decorations in Joyce Bornfriend's office at Cape Hatteras School: shiny commemorations of her selection for North Carolina's Counselor Advocate Award, and as the Dare County Principal of the Year.
But behind the shiny hardware, symbolic of a job well done, there is a story of hard work, and sacrifice, and dreams. And of a family and a teacher that made a difference.
Joyce Bornfriend was part of a senior class of 32 at Sunbury, N.C., High School. As the daughter of a Norfolk bus driver and a seamstress, there wasn't a big house or much money for Joyce and her siblings. But there was plenty of room for ambition.
``My brother is an executive with IBM, and my sister is an archaeologist,'' she said. ``My parents didn't have a college education, but they wanted it for us. Mrs. Parker made me believe I could do it.''
``Mrs. Parker'' was Shellan Parker, a teacher at Sunbury.
``Mrs. Parker taught English and French,'' Bornfriend said. ``She encouraged me to apply for scholarships. She told me that there was a way. I got a teacher's scholarship to East Carolina and was able to go to school.''
College was no easy road.
``I remember one semester, it was a couple of weeks before Christmas, and my roommate and I had $4.10 and a book of meal tickets between us. We used the meal tickets to eat breakfast, and we bought potted meat and bread, and made sandwiches. It was hard, but we made it.''
The days of bread and potted meat, and Mrs. Parker and Sunbury High, are important to understanding the woman who has served as principal at Cape Hatteras School since 1992. In her years as an educator, she has seen more than her share of trials.
Her first teaching job was at a predominantly black school in Pitt County. In the early days of integration of the public schools, North Carolina chose to integrate faculty first, then student populations.
``It was a wonderful experience,'' she said. ``It completely changed my perception of what life in the classroom would be. The average age in my sixth-grade class was 16. Lots of kids couldn't read at all. It required a 24-hour-a-day commitment. I had one kid that I worked with, and by the end of the year, he was reading. Like so many kids, he had never had fun learning. We tried to make it fun.''
In rural Pitt County, Bornfriend learned a valuable lesson that has served her well through her 27 years in education.
``Through teaching in Pitt County, I learned how much of a difference a teacher can make,'' she said. ``We don't realize the kind of impact we can have.''
Bornfriend continued to have an impact throughout her teaching and educational administration career. She remembers the Sunday afternoon she got a call from the superintendent. The Mann's Harbor Bridge was out, leaving children with no means to get to school.
``He wanted me to open a school in Mann's Harbor the next day,'' she recalls. ``I convinced him to give us Monday as a planning period, and the next day, we opened. We had kids from all grades there. It was a wonderful experience.''
Bornfriend later became the system's director of vocational education, the first woman administrator, and one of only three women administrators in vocational education at that time.
``It was tough,'' she said. ``I think some of the teachers were concerned. But I wasn't concerned with how you build a house; I wanted to try to help teachers find better, more effective ways of teaching.''
Bornfriend moved from various central office posts back to the classroom.
``When I first went into administration, we were a small system,'' Bornfriend said. ``I was in all the schools on a regular basis. As we got bigger, I was handling Chapter I, vocational education, the exceptional student program. I enjoyed the work, but it was not something I wanted to spend the rest of my career doing.''
So she became assistant principal at Hatteras and was named principal in 1992.
``This is a very special place,'' she said. ``We've got a committed group of kids and professionals who do an outstanding job.''
At Hatteras, she has endured a hurricane and a classroom fire, but it was something she had prepared for all her life.
``I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason,'' she said. ``All of the challenges you face are there to prepare you for something else. But what we have to concentrate on is making the educational process fun for every child. That's the way it should be.''
Bornfriend's approach must be working. A card on her desk from a sixth-grader is a sign of that.
``The thing I love about this place is I can walk down to a kindergarten room, and then come back, and find a card like this. It says `Merry Christmas, I love you. To the perfect principal.' You can't get those enough.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DREW C. WILSON, Staff
Joyce Bornfriend, who has been principal at Cape Hatteras School
since 1992, is Principal of the Year for Dare County, N.C., public
schools.
by CNB