A newsmaker you should know: Propel administrator receives mentoring award
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Carol Wooten
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When Carol Wooten left her job as superintendent of the Southside Area School District in Beaver County to join fellow educator Jeremy Resnick in his dream of creating the Propel charter school network in Western Pennsylvania, she knew she was taking a big chance.
"It was a huge risk, but I've always been a risk taker as a teacher and a principal," Ms. Wooten said.
That risk has been worth it for her.
Though the system started in 2003 with one charter school in the basement of a former hospital in Homestead, it will have its eighth school opening on the North Side this fall, and the system has a waiting list of about 2,500 students.
Its other schools offer elementary programs in McKeesport, Turtle Creek and Montour, the Andrew Street High School in Munhall, and the Braddock Hills location with grades K-four and nine-10, where grades will be added at each level until it is a K-12 school.
"I think that's pretty powerful in terms of demonstrating the need," Ms. Wooten said.
Her efforts were rewarded recently when she received the Excellence in Educational Leadership award, given annually by the University Council for Educational Administration's executive committee to practicing school administrators "who have made significant contributions to the improvement of administrator preparation," according to a release.
Ms. Wooten was nominated by the University of Pittsburgh School of Education.
The release said the award recognized Ms. Wooten's "extraordinary work in leading Propel to become a top-performing, nationally recognized charter organization" and for her "extraordinary efforts as a mentor to school administrators."
Ms. Wooten said she has long been willing to serve as a mentor to up-and-coming educators because she believes it's an important contribution to her field.
"I want the very best and brightest to continue on when I am gone. If you don't help them, then you just walk away from something without really leaving the knowledge and joy of the job. I try to impart joy along with all of the other aspects that would be expected," Ms. Wooten said.
First Published May 19, 2011 5:24 am
