“I want to enhance academic achievement, of course. That’s in my vision, but with an emphasis on reading. That's our number one. We've said it already. Mr. [Robert] Poole put that in place,” Bryant said, referring to the current superintendent who will be leaving to take the same position in Ashdown. “I want to definitely continue that, because reading is the cornerstone of academic success. It's in all content areas. You have to be able to read … That's what we're working on, and it's showing.”
She will be continuing Prescott’s move toward teaching reading based on a model that has developed over the past ten years which is often referred to as being based on the “science of reading.” This approach starts with instructing students on saying the words as they read them, recognizing word fragments of unfamiliar words. Then mentally forming the meanings of words and then sentences in a separate process.
Bryant said this way of teaching reading required that every teacher, not just those in the areas of reading and language arts, at Prescott undergo new training just as she began working there in 2020: “All teachers had to be trained to follow a pathway in the science of reading. So if you were elementary, you had more training at a higher level. It was a different kind of training.”
As for her management style, expect an emphasis on hearing from everyone concerned about a policy or a decision. “I believe everybody brings something to the table. So my style is collaborative. I'll be honest. The buck stops with me, but I don't have all the answers. I don't. And so I do listen, and I'm very transparent … I'm transparent to a T.”
Bryant has arrived at this way of running a school system based on 31 years of experience as teacher of math and as an administrator. But it wasn’t always easy. After having a tough year teaching, she left her position and spent a year as Accounting Manager at Mil-Way Federal Credit Union, but found she missed education.
“In the spring, I kept seeing former students. My husband thought I was crazy … My exact job opened right back up, and they hired me back. So that tells you I don't burn bridges,” Bryant said.
So she returned to Genoa Central and this time it kept. She served nine years as Math Coach/Computer Tech/Keyboarding and Math teacher there.
The turn toward administration began with Bryant becoming Curriculum and Federal Programs Coordinator at Genoa Central, where she remained for five years, when suddenly a new role beckoned. “It happened in September. Soon after school started the superintendent resigned, and I was made interim. So I did, kind of like I'm doing now, both jobs, and then I was hired as superintendent … In February, they opened up that position so then I became superintendent for the completion of that year, and then I had three more years in that position,” Bryant said.
Her next job was at Prescott, starting in the thick of the COVID pandemic and a major crisis for education on every level. Asked how she managed in taking the Curriculum Coordinator/Federal Programs Director job in a time when her schools were adjusting to an event unprecedented in our lifetimes.
Bryant said, “It was challenging, because I'd never dealt with anything like that. Neither had anybody here. It was just so new. So the big issue was, I'm coming in, I'm trying to learn people, to learn my team. I'm trying to learn teachers. Some people were getting COVID; staff was getting COVID. So that first year, school was not like school. It was the best we could make it. And that was very, very difficult for lots of reasons, difficult for students, difficult for staff, just difficult. And then on top of that, me coming in and trying to learn how they operate.”
Student learning indicators took a long time to rebound from this challenging time, Bryant said, but things may be looking up. “The third year, we start really getting some systems in place. And we just recently have been seeing growth in our students.” As a result of recent Zoom meetings with state officials, Bryant said she is optimistic about what the ratings of the district will be.
Bryant’s own educational background shows a concentration on education (no surprise) with an Master’s Degree of Science in Education at Southern Arkansas University and courses in Curriculum Program Administration and Education Leadership at Henderson State. She began her college education at Texas A&M Texarkana, eventually earning a Bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Studies, which Bryant said included heavy helpings of accounting along with her education classes. Her accounting skills have been called upon often in her career as an administrator.
But she expressed the most pride in her work on changing the atmosphere and the attitude of the places where she holds responsibility. “I feel like we have been having effective collaboration meetings with teachers … Just helping change the mindset of teachers and students to a growth mindset. We are making progress toward that. We already have some in place, but we are changing that. And then the other big thing is climate, helping administrators at all three buildings to have a positive climate in their building, and then us changing the culture. Because climate is immediate. It's how you feel,” Bryant said.
Bryant will officially become superintendent July 1st, but she is already partially moved into what will be her office and has photos up, one of herself with her spouse, Boyd Bryant, and the other with members of her immediate family which includes two sons and two grandchildren, one of whom is in college and the other still in high school.
Bryant was named Prescott School District’s next superintendent at the school board’s April 14th meeting. Her reaction? “I was honored. I mean this. I'm grateful for this opportunity.” But Bryant makes sure to credit Robert Poole for his work in setting the Prescott School District up to prosper. “It is a great honor to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Poole, who devotedly served the Prescott School District as superintendent for 15 years. He was instrumental in establishing outstanding facilities and laying a strong foundation for continued growth and success for our district,” she said.