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San Angelo ISD's Pattie Griffin embraces collaborative spirit of peers in education
By Amy E. Lemen
 Pattie Griffin’s path to a career in education started with a passion for helping children. The recently installed president of the Texas Association of School Business Officials graduated from San Angelo State University with a degree in sociology and a goal to “save all the abused children in the world.”
“I’d done an internship at the Concho Valley Home for Girls while I was in school,” she says. “I thought if I could do anything to prevent abuse or at least help (children) if they were abused, then that was what I wanted to do.”
But then, as she says, “reality hit.” During the internship, she saw too much at a young age about what some parents are capable of doing to their children, and she knew that making a career in that field wasn’t for her. But her drive to help children remained.
“I got on a substitute teacher list and thought I’d sub until I found a job,” Griffin recalls. “An elementary school principal in San Angelo called and said she needed a cafeteria aide. I figured I’d do it temporarily, but five years later I was still at the school.”
Griffin says the job put her “in the trenches of public education.” It was a challenge she relished every day, because she loved the people she worked with and the children she and her coworkers were there to serve.
“I knew my place was in public education,” she says. “It’s a very sharing environment, whether you’re in a large or small district and no matter what position you’re in, and whether you’re sharing challenges or accomplishments.”
In education, Griffin had found her calling. After working her way up in various administrative positions at Bowie Elementary in San Angelo ISD, Griffin spent eight years as an executive assistant to the district’s superintendent of business. She says this role paved the way to her understanding of a school district’s inner workings.
“I didn’t think I was suited for the job, but they kept calling,” she says. “I learned a lot about school business because our department oversaw everything related to operations — transportation, maintenance, food service, accounting, everything.”
Her newfound institutional knowledge earned her a promotion in 1998 as coordinator of benefits for San Angelo ISD. In that capacity, Griffin learned the ins and outs of health insurance, workers’ compensation and more. She was promoted to director of employee benefits in 2000.
Today, Griffin is San Angelo ISD’s director of human resources — a position she has held since 2002.
“It’s given me more time to focus on the needs of our employees and the services we provide, including hiring and retaining staff so that the kids benefit,” she says. “It’s a good mix to learn about the kids and the teachers, what they need in the classroom and how we can help.”
Griffin credits her career success to having mentors along the way. She says her mentors’ involvement in TASBO spurred her interest in the organization.
“(My mentors) introduced me to the organization, and I’ve been a member now for 13 years,” she says. “I really believe one of the reasons I am where I am today is because of the organization and its members.”
Griffin praises TASBO’s training programs and the networking opportunities the organization provides its membership. She says there’s great value in sharing workplace challenges and solutions with peers in your field.
“We share what works, what doesn’t,” she says. “That (level of sharing) is not as common in private business. It’s a wonderful feeling to know I’m not alone — that there’s a group that’s willing to share and talk, listen and advise.”
She also has the support of her husband, Griff. Married 18 months, Griffin is a newlywed — and a giddy, grateful one at that.
“We were both married before, and with him came a beautiful, intelligent, witty, 17-year-old daughter,” she says. “I hadn’t had children, so to get Sarah was a neat package deal. I have just been blessed with this child.”
Griffin, Griff and Sarah teach Sunday school classes together, sing in a church choir together and love the outdoors — whether it’s a day at the beach, at the pool or camping. They’re embarking on a Caribbean cruise in June to celebrate Sarah’s high school graduation.
Griffin and her husband also enjoy the camaraderie of their mutual friends. She and Griff have a five-year game of partner spades going with another couple, who are their best friends. The foursome have played about 20,000 games together.
“Our score sheets are an ongoing journal of our experiences together,” Griffin laughs. “It’s a fun journal of our friendship.”
Leading TASBO into 2009
As incoming TASBO president, Griffin wants to continue the organization’s mission to be the “trusted resource for public school operations.” And that includes providing services to members in increasingly challenging times for school districts.
“The laws and regulations are challenging financially because they’re not funded by those who mandated them,” she says. “We’re also asked to do more with less every year in every district. I want to know what members needs are and help them meet those challenges, whether it’s through training and education, giving them facts to make decisions or how best to prepare them for what’s ahead.”
For Griffin, it all comes back to the kids. It’s the kids who are the primary beneficiaries of what she does as an administrator.
“What does it take to give students the best education possible, and how can we best support teachers?” she asks. “I was raised in a family where my parents taught me that I could be whatever I wanted — no goal too big, no challenge too great.”
With those high aspirations instilled in her, Griffin has taken on the very noble cause of trying to make a difference in the lives of Texas schoolchildren.
“That is my personality: a servant’s heart,” she says.
AMY E. LEMEN is a freelance writer in Austin, who also contributes to Austin American-Statesman and Texas Monthly.
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