Mary Ellen Shaw's 34 Years in Falls Church City Schools

In 1970 Mary Ellen Shaw walked into a Falls Church City classroom for the first time. A first grade teacher at Mt. Daniel Elementary, Shaw had no idea that thirty years later she would be the Superintendent of Falls Church City schools.

After more than three decades of service in the schools Shaw is stepping down as superintendent, and taking a long needed break. Thirty four years of being a teacher and administrator has put Shaw in the front row to a lot of changes that have taken place, even as Falls Church students have continued to achieve at nationally high levels. Finding a brief moment in her schedule, Shaw talks about the unpredictable and often challenging, path, which she followed through the Falls Church School system.

Shaw was recruited directly out of Ohio University in 1970. She decided to take the job after being told that the Falls Church School system was a lighthouse system, progressive and forward thinking in developing curriculum and education strategies.

After teaching first and third grade, and spending a year in West Virginia, where her husband worked briefly, Shaw was made Principal of Mt. Daniel Elementary School.

Shaw talks about how the attitude of the Falls Church school supported her in taking on the new responsibilities of being principal at such an early point in her career. “When I came, there was such a high respect for the abilities of teachers,” says Shaw. “There was a collaborative approach to decision making.”

The focus on promoting leadership among teachers was what helped Shaw make the jump from teacher to administrator. Shaw still sees that same focus on leadership in the school system to this day.

While serving as principal of Mt. Daniel, Shaw was faced with a dramatic reshuffling of the school system. With steadily falling enrollment and a need for school renovation, the future of the three elementary schools, Thomas Jefferson, Mt. Daniel, and Madison, was in question. Because of location, Jefferson was renovated first and it was decided that Madison would be closed.

During this time period Shaw took on the additional work of temporarily coordinating language arts programs as Elementary Supervisor.

Later, when Mt. Daniel started to undergo renovation, Shaw faced the difficulty of being principal of a school that was simultaneously a work zone. The trials and tribulations of taking on a construction project created unforeseen challenges. Shaw hints at broken water lines and other minor disasters that beset the school throughout the development.

In 1990 Shaw took over as Assistant Superintendent when Nancy Sprague, the previous assistant superintendent, took a position in the Fairfax county school system. In 1997 after having been acting superintendent twice in seven years, Shaw was named Superintendent of Falls Church City Schools.

A long journey from her first grade classroom, Shaw never planned for her impact on the school system to happen in the way it did. “My career has been marked by having opportunities arise when I was least expecting them,” says Shaw. “The door opened, I walked through, and the next chapter started.”

Michael Hoover, an English teacher at George Mason High School, began teaching in Falls Church the same year as Shaw. Hoover remembers the teachers that began that year. “It was one of the most dynamic and idealistic groups of teachers,” says Hoover. One of the larger incoming “classes” in school history, Hoover remembers them as being ready to take on and change the world.

Shaw could hardly have predicted her own impact when she began teaching first grade. Every new position she took came as a surprise, rather than something she had planned. Hoover talks about how Shaw handled the unexpected change. “She grew into every position she was ever offered,” says Hoover. Rather than being preoccupied with her own success, Hoover saw Shaw as simply willing to help take on every new challenge that presented itself.

Shaw has seen many of those challenges during her career in the school system. Throughout the problems though, she has seen a community that has constantly supported the schools, despite the occasional debate about funding and the tax expense of keeping up a high quality school system.

As the importance of education has grown in the national awareness, and in legislative agendas, Shaw helped to make sure that the schools were able to continue to succeed under the new and more difficult standards. While she feels that these standards have caused some difficulties with curriculum and testing, she believes that the new mandate for higher educational standards can only be positive for students in the long run.

But the constant school construction and improvement has provided the most challenge to Shaw. During her career in Falls Church, every school in the city has been renovated.

“That has been the most draining part of my work here,” says Shaw. She says that the administration of the Church City School system doesn’t have a lot of the man power that handles the details of working with construction projects. “Everybody here has to get involved in it,” says Shaw.

Despite the construction distractions Shaw is proud of what she has accomplished as Superintendent. Throughout her tenure Shaw says that the schools have improved in their services to kids who need help meeting the high standards of the school system. On the other side of the coin, she has seen an increase in the percentage of students who are taking on the highest challenges that the school has to offer.

Shaw has also helped deal with the growth that is now starting to take place in the schools. After the diminishing enrollment of her early years in the school system, Shaw has seen a surge in class size that seems to be an indicator of a burgeoning student population.

Shaw points out, that as a small system, the traditional ways of doing things were able to remain accepted oral policies. Now, with the growth of the population, Shaw has had to work to establish written policies that will provide stability to a larger system.

Despite the improvements she has helped spearhead, there is a lot of work for her successor, Dr. Lois Berlin. Berlin will be starting as the new superintendent in July.

With the new legislative policies requiring accountability in schools, there is an emphasis on establishing a database to keep records and information on students’ performance.

The school system is also about to start a reshuffling of the alignment in which 3 of the 4 schools will have a new make-up of the grades they contain. Shaw knows, after a lifetime in the schools, that the only constant is change

A self-described lifetime worrier, the biggest thing Shaw learned as superintendent was that there are only so many preventative measures that can be taken, and some things just can’t be prevented. What’s important is being able to stay calm and take action in the event of an emergency. After having led the schools through the terrorist attacks of September 2001, and the sniper shootings of 2002, she has received a lot of first-hand experience in handling unpreventable disasters. For Dr. Berlin, Shaw has only one piece of advice. “Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek input,” says Shaw. Shaw points out that there are a lot of people excited and ready to help Dr. Berlin as she takes on the challenge of leading Falls Church Schools.

As for Shaw, she is planning to do some traveling and take care of some long untended family business. She has no plans to leave Falls Church, and is going to continue helping with the new school construction projects.

On July 1st Shaw will be able to see the school system from the outside for the first time in thirty years. She will be able to look back, across the years of unplanned change, and see the effect that a young first grade teacher had on a community when she was willing to take the chances and the opportunities that appeared.