Today was the last day of the 2012-2013 high school year at Wesley College in Belize City, and it was also the last day for Brenda Armstrong as the school's principal.
She's a career educator had an institution-defining tenure of 24 years as the school's leader, but she's decided that it is time for her to retire from the teaching profession. But after so many years, one just doesn't end a profession without a major disruption in routine and lifestyle. So 7News caught up with her today where she discussed the decision.
She also told us about the hundreds of Belizeans she's influenced, and how her final class gave her a grand send-off yesterday:
Brenda Armstrong - Outgoing Principal, Wesley College
"That going away session was really a heart-warming experience, 24 years as a school leader is not a short time and it doesn't hit you until you actually are in the position of having somebody read a citation for you, or write a poem for you, sing a song and all of that was done by my students and they really made me feel very appreciated. In fact it was called Appreciation Day and it made me realize that I have touched the lives of a lot of people. I averaged that if Wesley College took in 150 students every year and we've taken more - that in 24 years I have touched about 3,600 students at this school and I taught at Saint Catherine's before here. We're talking about thousands, in truth, and I would venture to say that Belize is the real beneficiary of all those years of work"
Daniel Ortiz
"What is that feeling like when you see some of your past students come back to you, maybe some of them were the difficult students you had to deal with - you see them come back to you and they have made a successful life for themselves. Your influence played a role in that change - what does that conversation sound like?"
Brenda Armstrong
"It might start out as 'remember me Ms. Armstrong?' and then I knew this one from the isle of a public supermarket and with a past student who said 'do you remember me Ms. Armstrong?' and I said 'yes of course I do'. We do sometimes tend to remember the ones that were a bit of a challenge more than the quiet ones but I said 'yes I did' and he said 'this is my wife and these are my children' and I looked around the corner and he asked me if I had remembered his mother and I think it was his grandmother that had raised and he told me where he was working and that he has established himself as a father and he told me it was partly because I stuck it out with him and he said 'I want to thank you' and I said 'I saw what you could do, I just had to wait for you to see what you could do'."
Daniel Ortiz
"Belize City is a tough place to live, a lot of negative influences. Has that changed your outlook any at all? Has that tempered you to be positive but also expect what you would like to see?"
Brenda Armstrong
"I don't think that the circumstances that we find ourselves in here at Wesley College has dampened our spirits or changed our approach in any way. Every child that comes to us has been welcomed and the wonderful thing about this institution is that whether you got a diploma after four year or you got a certificate of attendance after four year, or you didn't get any certificate - no paper at all then you're still a part of this school. You were and are still considered a past student of Wesley."
While Armstrong has undoubtedly made a major impact on the direction of Wesley College, she says that the school has a team of dedicated administrators, which has made her responsibilities easier to endure.
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