Gaithersburg’s Shady Grove Middle School Principal Lance Dempsey was one of two educators to receive Montgomery County’s prestigious Mark Mann Excellence and Harmony Award last month. Dempsey, who is from outside New York City, has worked as an educator in county schools for 17 years, five of which were spent teaching. She was nominated by her staff and chosen in part because of the school’s gains on state and federal tests. She has served as principal at Shady Grove since 2002.
Why do you say that the award is not about your leadership but about the whole school?
The level of excellence that we’re achieving at Shady Grove is really because of the partnership we have with the parents and the dedication, the commitment and the instructional leadership of the staff, and because of the kids as well. … As the leader of the building, I know it starts with me but to have the common vision is important.
Do you miss the classroom?
I get into classes as much as possible. I know that the teachers are the ones that are in the trenches, and just always trying to support them is very important.
You describe 2005 as a “pivotal year” for Shady Grove because of drops in test scores. How did you fix the problem?
We kind of just stopped and did an awful lot of problem solving. We really looked a lot at our school improvement plan, looked at exactly at what we were doing and dug deep to figure out, ‘Do all of our teachers really know the curriculum?’ … Our curriculum wasn’t necessarily aligned with the state tests. Now they’re aligned.
Where did you go to college?
University of Maryland. … My dad went here on the GI bill. I was paying for college, so this was the cheapest, which was the deciding factor as to why I came to the University of Maryland.
