Education Edition - 1736 Magazine, Fall 2019

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SPIVEY continued from 23 Although Spivey was a Richmond Academy alumnus, he politely declined the offer. But then the “offer” politely turned into an order. So in 2009, a somewhat reluctant Spivey took the helm of a school that had lost its luster in the 34 years since he roamed its halls as a senior. But his three years as principal not only changed the school – it changed Spivey’s life. “It was the best job I ever had,” said Spivey, who retired from the school system in 2014 as deputy superintendent. Although graduation rates, test scores and other performance metrics increased under his leadership, Spivey considers his crowning achievement to be restoring the historic school’s sense of pride, and its decorum. “The school was out of control,” Spivey said. “They were having some gang issues, a lot of fighting going on. There just wasn’t a lot of pride in the school. The teachers were just kind of down and out.” Spivey made sweeping changes at the school, relying on a common-sense based playbook the former physical education teacher and coach developed during his years in administration, first as a principal at Tutt Middle School and later as principal at Westside. First on the list was restoring order. Spivey got security officers out of the central office and dispersed them throughout the three-story building. Then he changed the policy to allow students to enter the building when they arrived at school - just like Westside - rather than letting them crowd around the school’s locked doors. “You can imagine what it was like not letting them in until the bell sounded,” Spivey said. “You’ve got 1,300 students trying to rush the doors.” Spivey also cut the school’s three lunch periods to two, eliminated the second period that cut into classroom time. He reduced lunchroom crowding by implementing an intramural basketball program, which encouraged many students to eat faster to play and watch the games. He also had the school’s former cafeteria, which had been turned into a weight room during the 1980s, turned into a seniors-only lunchroom, which dispersed the crowds even more. (The lunchroom was later renamed The Carl T. Spivey Cafe in his honor.) He boosted school spirit by replacing damaged trophy cases, which had been broken during fights, with new cases built by a friend who was a master carpenter. The cracked tiles at the school’s main entrance were replaced by floating wood flooring with the school’s “R” logo prominently painted in the middle. Against the advice of his colleagues, he allowed a bonfire to be lighted during homecoming. “Everybody had a great time, nobody got in trouble,” Spivey said. “Those are just the little things to kind of restore that high school atmosphere. It didn’t hurt that the football team was good and they were winning - that adds a lot of school spirit. “Football’s the first sport of the year. If it does well, a lot of kids get on the bandwagon and it makes a lot of difference with the culture of the school. If (the athletes and cheerleaders) are not doing well, then other people become the ‘cool’ kids.” Spivey himself was a high school athlete, getting baseball scholarships to South Georgia State College and the University of West Georgia. His first jobs in the school system were teaching physical education and serving as a coach at several county schools before moving into administration in 1996 as assistant principal of Westside High School. When it came to discipline or counseling students from disadvantaged backgrounds, Spivey could draw on his own experiences growing up in Augusta’s blue-collar Harrisburg neighborhood, which at the time was home to many textile mill workers, city employees and other working-class families. His first home was in the Olmstead Homes public housing project before his father, a firefighter, moved the family to a home on nearby Lake Avenue. Like many Harrisburg kids, Spivey attended John Milledge Elementary and Tubman Junior High, and spent a lot of time at Chafee Park’s pool and gymnasium, as well as the adjacent Whataburger and the Boys & Girls Club on Division Street. “I always thought we were kind of middle class, but as I look back, we probably were kind of poor,” Spivey recalls. “But our parents made us go to church on Sunday and taught us good lessons. The neighborhood people, everybody watched out for everybody, so I think I learned some good life lessons by being raised in Harrisburg. I think my older friends would say the same thing. “I think being raised in Harrisburg helped me stay grounded,” he said. “As I became a principal, I could relate to the kids. At Richmond Academy, we had a very diverse population. I always felt like I could relate well to all of them because I knew where I came from.” Spivey’s biggest contribution to restoring pride in Richmond Academy was his idea to establish a school “Hall of Fame.” He came up with the concept after seeing a similar program at a smaller school while on a cross-state cycling trip with his wife. With a charter dating back to 1783, Richmond Academy has produced numerous noteworthy graduates, from former Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Lamar to Forrest “Spec” Towns, Georgia’s first Olympian and first gold medal recipient. Spivey and a committee began working on the Hall of Fame and in 2012 named its first inductees, which included former Georgia Gov. Carl Sanders, anchorwoman Judy Woodruff and NCAA Hall of Fame coach Pat Dye. Portraits of inductees hang in the school’s media room and recipients are recognized at an awards banquet every October. “I think it has really helped pull the community back into the school,” Spivey said. The Hall of Fame’s bylaws state that at least one inductee each year be an educator. This year, that educator happens to be Spivey, who after leaving Richmond Academy served as the school system’s deputy superintendent as well as its interim superintendent until his retirement in 2014. In all his 34 years as an educator and administrator, Spivey still considers his three years at Richmond Academy as the high watermark of his career. “I know that our graduation rates improved and out test scores improved,” Spivey said. “But the biggest thing that changed was the atmosphere. That feeling of being able to enjoy school.” 78 | 1736magazine.com 1117_T_78_AM____.indd 78 10/25/2019 12:10:01 PM
JONES continued from 27 them about all the things that you can have, their mouths open because they think those things can come only by being a rap artist.” Changing young minds one student at a time has been a pursuit of Jones ever since his Universal Plumbing service turned into one of the region’s largest plumbing contractors. It’s a mission forged out of his own upbringing, a ragsto-riches story shaped by Jones’ ambition, fortitude and old-fashioned hard work. Jones can relate to many of the students because he used to be like them, having grown up in what was once – and still is – one of Augusta’s poorest neighborhoods. Jones’ father, who worked at the Merry Bros. brickyard, had a second-grade education; his mother, who worked as a maid for wealthy Augusta families, left school in junior high. But both were insistent their son graduate high school, work hard and – above all else – stay out of trouble. Jones was a standout defensive end on the Josey High team but was admittedly mediocre in the classroom “I was not an “F” student, but I was a terrible student,” Jones acknowledged. “I was just not student-oriented. I was not college material.” This is all the more reason Jones’ inspirational talks stress the skilled trades as a career path, particularly for students who are not interested – nor able to afford – a four-year college degree. Most of Jones’ employees, who can be seen crisscrossing the metro area in the company’s signature white trucks, earn $70,000 to $90,000 a year providing needed services. “They’re using their hands and they’re helping customers,” Jones said. “They’re taking care of people, and in return, those people take care of us. This is honest work – this is is hard work.” He is proud his alma mater is now home to the Marion E. Barnes Career Center, a 20,000-foot-facility that offers students work-ready programs in everything from welding and HVAC repair to general construction and cosmetology. Jones helped create the curriculum for Josey’s plumbing program through his work on the Richmond County Board of Education’s CTAE Advisory Council. Jones also is a longtime member of Augusta Technical College’s board of directors, as well as a Heritage Academy. He is involved in so many organizations and civic projects that he’s had to enlist the help of his niece and business manager, Shalanda Morris, a Harvard-educated former educator headteacher, to oversee his civic commitments and charitable contributions. For Jones, who earned his Georgia master plumber’s license by studying nights and weekends while working in the Medical College of Georgia’s maintenance department, his mind was set on running his own business from day one. At the time, black plumbers were a rarity – and black plumbing company owners were almost non-existent. Jones distinctly recalls the derision heaped upon him during the company’s early years in the 1980s. Jones recalls his contemporaries laughing at his white truck – uncommon in the industry associated with dirt and grime – and how a competitor he met at a plumbing supply store once asked for one of his Universal Plumbing T-shirts so he “could put it on the wall and throw darts at it.” “It was their way of saying, ‘Stay in your space. Stay in your lane,’ “ Jones said. “It was like they were saying, ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’” Jones persevered by falling back on the advice his mother, Laura Frances Jones, gave him one day when he considered quitting the football team because he was tired of getting “hurt.” She said, ‘Are you hurt, or are you injured? If you’re hurt, you get back up and do it again. If you’re injured, you can’t do it,” Jones recalled. “So if you’re not injured, you keep getting back up.’” The ridicule that had hurt Jones’ feelings during his company’s early years was distilled into high-octane ambition. “I was hurt,” he said. “But I wasn’t injured.” Jones hopes to instill the same values in students trying to find their way in the world while carrying baggage from growing up in often-dysfunctional homes. When mentoring troubled children, many of whom are lower-income African-Americans, Jones uses the analogy of being hit by shrapnel from a hand grenade thrown at someone else. “That’s (the lesson) we have to give kids because they’re beat down. Some of them are collateral damage,” Jones said. “I always tell them, you might be experiencing bad things in your family, in your life. It’s not intended for you.” But Jones’ biggest challenge is trying to instill a work ethic in a generation that has never known what real poverty is. Jones’ boyhood home on Meadow Street, just blocks from Josey High School, was on a dirt road that didn’t have running water until the late 1950s. The bathroom was a backyard outhouse. The hand-powered well pump that Jones muscled as a child is prominently displayed at his office on Milledgeville Road as a reminder of his dirt-poor roots and as an inspiration to new and prospective employees. “So many kids are not taught the value of work. They’ve been given the $150 sneakers and the things that pacify them, but the skills and talents that they may have, haven’t been cultivated,” he said. “So when they get out of high school, they have this mentality of having been given all of this stuff, but not knowing how to honestly get it. So sometimes they go south.” Like many contractors, Jones believes too many children with an aptitude for skilled-trade jobs have been steered toward fouryear college-degree programs that, in many cases, they will not complete or end up owing more in student debt than the degree is worth. Jones acknowledges there are some students who, for myriad reasons, will not follow his example and instead seek easy money through criminal activity. Many of them, unfortunately, will end up incarcerated. Some may wind up dead in the streets. It’s a tragic scenario he sees on an all-to-regular basis as a member of the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice’s advisory board. Still, Jones is undeterred. He considers it a victory to put at least one student on the road to success – be it in the skilled trades or some other “honest” occupation. “I’ve done everything I can to help (young people) in their lives,” Jones said. “My success is making sure that their bills are paid, that they’re taking care of families and that they’re making the money they want through the right choices.” 1736magazine.com | 79 1117_T_79_AM____.indd 79 10/25/2019 12:08:29 PM
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