May 2010
Dallas ISD principal raises the bar for all
By Whitney Angstadt

After accepting her first teaching job, it took very little time for Benita Noiel-Ashford to realize that she had found her calling in public education. Now as a school administrator and president of the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals (TASSP), she works tirelessly to help principals give students every opportunity they need to succeed.

It’s a far cry from the career she had her sights set on when she graduated from East Texas State University (now Texas A&M University – Commerce) in 1978.

“Originally, I wanted to be an actress,” admits Ashford, who earned a bachelor of science degree in all-level speech and drama and was crowned Miss Black Texarkana the same year.

After college, Ashford worked as a professional model and went on to claim four more pageant titles. Yet, her acting career didn’t lift off as she had hoped. So, Ashford decided to put her teaching certificate, which she had earned while at the university, and her communications skills, which she had honed during her pageant career, to good use.

She began teaching reading and drill team at Lincoln Humanities/Communications Magnet High School in South Dallas in 1986. Under the mentorship of Lincoln High’s beloved and sometimes controversial principal Dr. Napoleon B. Lewis, Ashford quickly realized how important education was to her.

“I grew up in a family of eight and was the first to graduate from college,” Ashford says. “[Going to college] was important to me because I was taught that getting an education was the only way to make it and be successful in life. And sure enough, that stands true today. You must have an education in order to compete.”

Believing in her potential, Principal Lewis encouraged the young teacher to continue her education and to set higher goals.

“It took a star principal to encourage me to get my master’s degree and my doctorate,” says Ashford. “[Lewis] continued to increase my roles and responsibilities in a leadership capacity, and that is really what inspired me to become a principal.”

After receiving her mid-management certification, Ashford moved from Lincoln High to another Dallas ISD school, the Pearl C. Anderson Middle School Learning Center, in 1991 and continued to teach.

After five years at Anderson, she took a vice principal position at Forney High School in Forney ISD, a smaller school district east of the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Ashford stayed at Forney High for three years until 1999 when Dallas ISD hired her back as dean of instruction at Lincoln High. For three years, Ashford worked to bring the school up to a “Recognized” status. Then, she moved to Terrell in 2002, where she became principal at Terrell Middle School.

In 2005, she returned to Dallas ISD — this time as principal of Pearl C. Anderson Middle Learning Center, where she has been ever since.

Ashford says at her school, where most students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, success is defined by more than academic performance. It’s about keeping students focused and ready to learn. Her staff also has to contend with the distractions of the inner-city environment at this South Dallas school.

“Not a lot of suburban schools deal with liquor stores around their neighborhoods and students having to walk through that on their way to school,” she says. “At my school, we have to get the students past all those ills and the baggage that they might bring from home to get them to learn.”

Ashford’s staff tries to build meaningful relationships with each student and encourage involvement in school activities. From student council to service projects, all of these activities help students build leadership skills — another of Ashford’s passions.

As president of TASSP, Ashford’s mission revolves around defining principalship as not merely a job, but as a position with a purpose that goes beyond the school.

“We’re molding the characters of children and trying to inspire them to become leaders,” Ashford says. “The commitment that we have goes a bit further than just nine to five.”

Ashford continues to raise the bar for herself as well.

“What I hope is next for me is that I move into that superintendency, because I think that the vision I have for children and teaching and learning extends beyond what I’m doing right now,” she says. “I want to be in that leadership role that would help a school district see that same vision and have that same passion that I have for education and learning.”

WHITNEY ANGSTADT is a freelance writer in Austin.