Arlington Connection

Arlington — It was the third day of school and Gordon Laurie, new principal at Williamsburg Middle School, began his day when a father dropping off his son explained to Laurie that his son couldn't work the combination on his locker. Laurie told him he would take care of it.

"Not a big line item for me but obviously important to the student because he couldn't get his stuff out of his locker," Laurie said. But at 11:36 a.m. the big line item showed up when the electricity suddenly went out in the school. After a quick call to the power company, Laurie reacted instantly to calm the teachers and the students, to figure out whether there was hot lunch for the upcoming second lunch period, to begin implementation of a plan for moving students from rooms without windows. And then “poof,” the lights went back on.

Laurie says his goal as a new principal is to not to break the high-performing tradition while conveying his own vision. Laurie says it is "every child's educational birthright and our moral obligation that 100 percent will be successful. Anything less is not acceptable. We want to position them in the best way possible for academic success but also the intangibles.

“What I am learning is that Williamsburg has a rich tradition in the community with deep roots. We have teachers who came here as a student, " he said. "Folks have been coming in since July 1 and sharing their time at Williamsburg."

Laurie taught English for 10 years and was an assistant principal at both Wakefield High School and Washington-Lee High School before coming to Williamsburg. He said as a teacher you can impact the students but as a principal you can make systemic changes. He became interested in this career path when he was part of a teacher group chosen to speak about the assistant principal with the superintendent of Falls Church City Schools. As the newly-chosen principal was leaving to take over at George Mason High School, he encouraged Laurie to explore and pursue an administrative certification. This led Laurie to George Mason University, a training ground for prospective principals. He says as he thinks back on his time in education, he has seen a shift with "more attention to being deliberative about the things we're doing and a more collaborative mind set."

Laurie recalls other things have changed. When he was a first year teacher it was trial by fire and if you could prove you were going to make it, the system would engage. "Now support is primary from the beginning to help a teacher become successful." Along with this is a shift in thinking about digital. "Older teachers are digital immigrants." He explains that today's students are never without the internet, "so we have to craft a program that meets their needs." He says with today's students, "we're looking to provide skills for the 21st century for jobs that haven't been invented yet. Work ethic and written communication are absolutely necessary."

Laurie said that teachers can make this leap in teaching techniques because of "the quality of teachers we hire. One thing I can control is hiring and we have passionate and highly qualified teachers here. I have faith in their decisions, and teacher autonomy is well protected." He adds the teachers also work in collaborative teams so that they have dedicated time to address issues allowing them to share common assessment tools — what worked or didn't so that everyone masters skills. All teachers are CPR and EpiPen qualified. Laurie has 102 teachers this year with 17 new ones.

Williamsburg is "a traditional middle school," Laurie said. It is one of two traditional middle schools in Arlington County with Swanson Middle School the other one. Gunston is a partial Spanish immersion school, Thomas Jefferson an International Baccalaureate World School and Kenmore is an Arts and Communication Technology-based school.

"Williamsburg is a neighborhood school serving the children of the local community,” he said. “It has a strong program of academic excellence and a reputation as the very best Arlington has to offer its students." Williamsburg offers similar language choices as the other Arlington Middle schools — Spanish, French, Latin, Chinese and Arabic with five core class periods in sixth grade, four in seventh and eighth grades, PE and three lunch periods beginning at 10:36 a.m. Electives include the elective wheel that allows the students to "dip their toes" in a number of different things for a short period — the arts such as drama, where a student can find roles onstage or be a backstage technician. "It can be a formative experience." French has been added to the elective wheel as a pass/fail subject so the student can "try it out, no pressure." Sports include basketball, wrestling, soccer, swimming, pickle ball, with fencing gathering steam, and tennis. Tennis has been relocated at Yorktown High School since the Williamsburg tennis court was torn out to make room for the newly-opened Discovery Elementary School sharing the space.

"The most visible piece at Williamsburg is that the students here are outperforming their peers in the county and the nation almost exponentially,” Laurie said. Middle school students have “grit, resilience, integrity. Not one size fits all. We meet kids where they are."