TEXARKANA, Ark. -- Arkansas Middle School has added principal Kendrick Smith to its team.
Smith replaces Theresa Cowling who, in December, accepted the position of Director of Magnet Programs.
Smith earned a Bachelor of Science in Health Education from Texas A&M University-College Station and received his Master's degree in Education Administration from Texas A&M University-Texarkana.
With more than 20 years in education, Smith's educational career includes being a coach/teacher and assistant principal in the Pleasant Grove School District, and both assistant principal and principal at Liberty-Eylau High School. He was also the L-E High principal from July of 2015 to January of 2021.
Smith started his new position on Nov. 29 and says things have been going well thus far.
Through the process of building relationships, Smith hopes to learn the individual strengths of staff and build on those strengths with recognition and praise, allowing for a cohesive work environment at his new home for years to come.
Questions & Answers
Towards the end of last semester, Smith offered the Gazette these insights.
How have your first couple of weeks treated you at Arkansas Middle School?
"So far, everything is going well. It's been a very warm welcome. It's been very welcoming and comfortable. They're getting to know me, and I'm getting an opportunity to know me. I feel like the kids are buying into me being on campus, which I think is important. And I'm just looking forward to building those relationships with students, teachers, as well as parents and members of the community."
Tell me a little about your background -- where you grew up, went to school and just your upbringing.
"I was born in Waco, Texas, and raised in McGregor. It's kind of like a Texarkana-Hooks relationship, as far as McGregor and Waco. I traveled quite a bit because my father was in the military. But we made it back to McGregor and I graduated from McGregor High School in '92. From there, I was fortunate enough to go to Texas A&M at College Station and ran track there on an athletic scholarship.
I competed for the opportunity to go to the Olympics in '96 and went to the Olympic trials. I didn't make the team, but had the opportunity.
I moved here in '97 and worked at the Hope Migrant Health Center for about a year, and then I transitioned to Texarkana at the St. Michael Health and Fitness Center. Coach (Rick) Barker was the athletic director at Pleasant Grove at the time, and his wife came in and told me that he had started without a coach and I needed to go talk to him.
So, I went and talked to him, and in the fall of 2000 I started my career in education and it just grew from there."
That's an interesting transition into becoming an educator. What skills did you learn in that position and up to that point of your career that you think made you a good fit for an education position?
"It's just the relationships that you build with the different members coming into the community. You start to meet a lot of individuals in different roles within the community. So, when you transition into the education field, a lot of those people that you knew – now you're working with those kids. There was a big trust factor that I felt I was able to bring into education just because I knew parents from the gym. So, we were able to build a relationship, and that made them feel comfortable with me working with their students inside the school system."
How do you think having a sports background helps you in education?
"It just makes you competitive. You get to a point where you want to win all the time, so you take that same competitive edge into winning over kids. You want to see kids be successful in the classroom. Now, you don't have the practice, games and the scores that are printed in the paper. You keep score mentally, so to speak. You want to see the school grow and you realize there are more kids in the building than just athletes.
A lot of times when you come into the business as a coach, there's a lot of focus on getting the team ready, preparing for Friday night or whatever that athletic competition is. In the building, sometimes you can get the teacher/coach switched into a coach/teacher mentality. But it's very important that we make sure we keep it as a teacher/coach because you're always going to be a teacher first.
Was it always a goal of yours to become an administrator or principal in education, or did it just work out that way where you worked your way up?
"It kind of worked out that way, honestly. Coming in, I probably had more goals on winning a state championship or getting individuals into state competitions and that sort of thing. Then, when I got my first opportunity as an Assistant Principal, the thought process was that if I didn't like it, I could transition back into coaching. But I transitioned to the other side and I saw a bigger picture to the whole business.
As a coach, there's a view, but when you get into the administrative side of it you start to see an aerial view. You see the entire landscape and that changed my view of it all. And I thought maybe there's an opportunity to move up and do some other things.
The assistant principal role suited me well. I didn't want to get too heavy into the school politics side of it because you would all hear about that. But the more that I learned and grew in that role, it just prepared me for the opportunity to run a campus.
I like the 'it takes a village,' mentality because it's really the truth. And my job is to grow the assistant principals and allow them, plus myself, to grow the teachers. And if we keep that flow, then everybody will be able to be held accountable and we'll be able to implement systems into the process that will allow us to be successful."
What made AMS a good fit for you?
"The timing couldn't have been better, with some of the things that were going on in my life. So I appreciated AMS for reaching out and giving me the opportunity. And it kinds of puts me in the position of 'Is there something for Kendrick Smith to prove as an educator?' When you have something taken away from you that you got comfortable in, and then you wake up one day, and what you're going to do is taken away from you. And this is another opportunity, so I definitely want to make sure that I cash in.
I just want to make Arkansas Middle School a great place for students to learn. We want to change the culture and make sure that the climate is conditioned for students to come in and get a great education. We want it to be safe. There's definitely a lot of work to do, but the work to be done here is no different than the work in any other school setting."
Are there any lessons you've learned from past positions that you think will help you in this one?
"I think we can always learn lessons as we go, just file those things away and utilize them. I don't have any regrets of being an educator at L-E. I never woke up and said 'I never should've taken that job,' because that's not true. That was an opportunity for me to lead a building for the first time. There were a lot of wonderful people I came in contact with, and those were relationships I was able to build. I plan on continuing to lean on those relationships as I continue to grow in this business because there's just so much information that's out there, and one principal isn't going to know it all.
So, you've got to make sure that you utilize those resources to help you through some things. And you want to keep your head on a swivel, which comes from the coaching aspect. It's just making sure that all the decisions that you're making are in the best interest of the students moving forward. And if I continue to utilize that as my filter, then I feel that I will be successful in the field of education."
What are some of your top priorities and goals at AMS?
"The first goal is obviously to come in and get an opportunity for everybody to get to know me, and for myself to get to know everybody and find out exactly what we have in place currently. One of the surveys I sent out to the teachers was just a simple -- 'What do we want to start? What do we want to stop? What do we want to continue?' It's looking at that feedback to find out what some of the mindset is. I've gone around and had some individual conversations with some teachers.
Coming in during the middle of the year is one of those situations where you don't want to change anything major because you don't want to change something that's successful. So the first three weeks have been a lot of sitting back, monitoring, being visible in the halls to the students and teachers. I think just making sure that your presence is there is huge. But as far as getting into the major decision-making process, a lot of that will probably kick off a little bit more in the second semester, as we start gearing up for that.
I've been here long enough to start seeing a few things, and I just want to make sure that programs and things that we implement are implemented with fidelity. We have to make sure that we hold students, teachers, administrators and parents, to a certain extent, accountable. We want to reach out and make sure that they feel welcome here, as well. We can't do the job we want to do if we're not allowing parents to be a part of the process."
If there was one thing you could say to teachers, students, faculty, parents and all the people you'll be working with about what to expect in your tenure here, what would that be?
"We're going to try to incorporate that 'get it done,' attitude. We're going to try to move forward with no problems too big for us to solve. When you think about education and the number of degreed individuals that you have in one location, there's too much knowledge there to allow any one situation to defeat us. So if we can just get that we're not going to be defeated,' attitude and that we're going to be successful matter what it takes -- if we're willing to put the work in -- we'll get the results that we're seeking."
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
"I appreciate the warm welcome from all the members within the community. We just want to make sure that we garner as much support from the community as we possibly can so that we can continue to move Arkansas Middle School in high regards within the education field."