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Presented annually by the Maine Principals’ Associaton, A master’s degree in literacy and staf development
the Distnguished Principal of the Year award recognizes advanced her training, but not enough, so she trained in
outstanding high school, middle school and elementary Reading Recovery, an interventon program. “My inital plan
school principals, honoring each for leadership, commitment was just to get that training,” she said. Finding it “completely
to excellence and support of learning. As Maine’s elementary compelling” Williams soon lef Phillips to teach Reading
school level award winner, Williams will travel this fall to Recovery to other teachers. For her, it was the perfect mix of
Washington D.C., where she will be saluted with other top teaching and professional refecton.
educators from around the country.
By 2005, though, she again missed
Raised in Rumford, being in one place. And she wondered
Williams was unfamiliar what it would be like to head a school
with Farmington but not of her own. Back in Farmington where
with working in educaton. her formal training began, Mallet
She’d volunteered with was looking for a principal. Williams
special educaton students applied. The school system accepted.
in high school and had been
partcularly struck by a student “I defnitely felt a litle wobbly at
who stutered. “The person frst,” she said. “I felt like the school
seemed very tortured by that, secretary knew what I was supposed
and of course I had no skills to to be doing more than I did.” Williams
help,” Williams said. fgured it out.

Determined to build While she doesn’t like to praise
skills, she enrolled at UMF, herself, Williams’ teachers have no
where her teachers included problem doing it for her—using words
Richard Holmes and Donald
like “superwoman.”
Leading with “We” Weatherbee. “They were kind “Part of the reason is our trust and
of the icons of speech therapy
course work,” she said. Holmes
belief in our leader,” wrote second
set standards high enough to
grade teacher Sandra Jamison in
be intmidatng. Weatherbee
ofered a sofer touch. Both a leter supportng Williams as
elementary-level Principal of the Year.
had a sense of humor. In “She listens, respects and believes in
their classrooms, Williams’ her teachers.”
confdence grew. “I felt they
did a lot to guide me,” she Each morning, Williams selects students to lead Teachers talk about Williams knowing
said. the school in recitng the Pledge of Allegiance over all students by name, knowing her
the intercom. staf members personally, encouraging
They wouldn’t be her everyone to meet high expectatons
only mentors with a UMF and giving them the tools to do so.
connecton. Years later she’d work with—and learn from—
Margaret Arbuckle, then-director of the Western Maine Parents talk of her vision for the school, the sense of
Partnership, which focused on staf development and community she’s created and the kindness she exudes.
educatonal change. “Mrs. Williams shows genuine concern and compassion
while encouraging exploraton, forward movement and
Graduatng from UMF with a bachelor’s degree in growth,” wrote Autumn Wilbur, mother of two, in a leter
elementary educaton and speech correcton, Williams’ frst recommending Williams for Principal of the Year.
job was as a traveling speech therapist for SAD 58 in Phillips.
She’d stay 14 years. Only three were as speech therapist but it To Williams her win “feels a litle unfair.” Making Mallet
was enough for her to recognize that speech therapy students great, she said, is a collectve efort. She credits UMF for
were ofen disenfranchised in their classrooms, stuck in the giving her career its start and “the confdence to go out and
back of the class. do one of those big-people jobs.”

For the next 11 years she taught third and fourth grades, And where does Williams go from here?
and she loved it. But Williams ran into the same problem
she had as a high school volunteer. There were students she “Back to work,” she said.
didn’t have the skills to help. These students couldn’t read.
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