Oral History Program Teresa Garrett Interviewed by Michelle Hurst & Lyndsay Carter 24 January 2018 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Teresa Garrett Interviewed by Michelle Hurst & Lyndsay Carter 24 January 2018 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Garrett, Teresa, an oral history by Michell Hurst & Lyndsay Carter, 24 January 2018, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Teresa Garrett 24 January 2018 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Teresa Garrett, conducted on January 24, 2018, by Michelle Hurst and Lyndsay Carter. Teresa discusses her life and experiences as a minority leader in Northern Utah. MH: This is an interview by Michelle Hurst and Lyndsay Carter for MPC 6400 Leadership class. We are interviewing Teresa Garrett; she is the Vice Principal of Bear River Middle School in Box Elder School District. Teresa, can you start by telling us about your background? Your childhood, teen years, where you grew up, hobbies, family values, education, etc. TG: I grew up in Southern California. When I was 13, my father was made the principal of Box Elder High School and our family moved to Utah. I graduated from Box Elder High School. I had a 4-year full-ride scholarship to college, and when I went to Utah State for the Presidential award, they told me that I could be a secretary—because I'm so old that women could basically be a secretary, a nurse, or a school teacher. I gave up my scholarship and didn't go to college because I could already take shorthand and type faster than they told me I'd be able to do after 4 years of college. So I didn't go to college then; I went to work as a legal secretary and worked for a big company for about three-and-a-half years. Then the government stole me away from the company I worked for, and I still worked on the same floor of the building, but now I worked for the federal government in the Defense Contract Audit Agency. I worked for them for two years and then decided to go to college. I was expecting my second child and I went to college for one semester but kept a full year. I stayed home and had my family, and 20 years later, I went 1 back to college when my eighth child was starting first grade. I finished my college degree and loved school and just kept going. I had been an EMT Firefighter for about probably 15 years at that point, and so my one daughter thought I should go to school and become a Physician Assistant. I said, “Oh, that would be too much school and too many bad hours with a young family.” I went into teaching and then did a master’s and then did an administrative endorsement. I ended up doing more years of school than a nurse practitioner would have. I worked long hours; probably would have worked fewer hours if I had actually worked at a doctor's office or hospital. I've taught math. I got an elementary education degree and taught math in the seventh grade. I taught three years of fifth grade, then went back to seventh grade. Then my principal asked me to be the trust teacher for the in-school suspension students who could not be in classes. I had a self-contained classroom and I taught math, science, and language arts for sixth grade and for seventh grade every day. I also managed their behavior contracts, and I had as many as 12 students at a time. It was a very high-stress, demanding job for two years. Then I went back in the classroom, and by then, I had finished my administrative degree. I did not get an administrative job right away; a few people told me they thought [it was] because I seemed intimidating, which I thought was kind of ridiculous. But before I had finished my degree and began teaching, I had served on the local school board and had been elected to the board. I served as the president of the board for two terms of two years. I knew everybody at the district 2 office and in the schools, but I had been their boss before I became their employee. It took me a few years to finally get an administrative position, but that's what I'm doing now, is the middle school with eighth and ninth graders. The viceprincipal, of course, is the one who has to handle discipline. I'm the one who has to call the parents when their child has broken the rules, or sluffed, or gotten in a fight, or is failing classes, or has more than 10 absences. Until this year, I had to fill out paperwork with the courts or with the police, because it was against the law to sluff school or miss that many days. But now, the Utah Legislature changed the law last year, and there is no punishment for a student not coming to school anymore. MH: Really? LC: I didn’t know that. TG: Yeah, it’s frustrating. In fact, this morning I had our at-risk meeting with my counselors and a couple of my department heads in special ed, math, and different departments. We look at students and discuss which students we feel are at risk of not being able to graduate from high school in four years, or earning their credits right now. Yesterday was our 35th day in the school term, and I have some students who have missed more than 25 days. It’s no surprise they’re on my failing list because they never come, and it’s really hard to teach them if they’re never there. Even if they’re pretty bright, they’re not there often enough to be able to give them all the tests they need to take. So it’s been really frustrating and challenging. 3 My hobbies consist of music, reading—I actually have a master’s in reading. I have a music endorsement, math endorsement, reading endorsement, a Utah Studies for seventh grade endorsement… I really like school. MH: How well did you do in school? TG: I returned to school with eight children. My oldest child was married, I had seven children at home, and I went to Utah State and became the valedictorian of the college of education. I did well; I liked school. It was fun and easy for me. It was stressful because I would come home at night to a house full of small children. I had three elementary children when I went back to school. I fixed dinner and did the laundry and would do dishes and clean the house, and I was still teaching piano at that time, but no longer babysitting. I had babysat, taught piano, taught singing, taught hula dancing, was the 4-H advisor, was an EMT firefighter. I was very involved in my church. I kept busy when I had a young family. LC: That’s impressive. TG: Or crazy. LC: What experiences did you have in childhood, your teen years, or even your adult years that lead you to believe that you could be a leader? TG: I am the third of eight children, so I had four younger brothers and sisters, and my mother suffered from migraines. They would make it so she would have to spend a couple of days in bed, so a lot of times, I would come home from school—even in grade school—and take care of the younger kids. I remember in sixth grade, my little brother was still in preschool, and he would be standing at 4 the front door waiting for me to get home every night so that I could take him outside and play with him, read to him, and take him on walks. I babysat a lot when I was a young teen and an older teen. In fact, people in our neighborhood would hire me to babysit for the weekend from the time I was 14 and up. I, as a 15 and 16-year-old, would babysit six or eight kids for three days while their parents were out of town. I cooked all the meals, and so I figured I was good at it. I liked kids; I could do it. I always read to people. My father was an educator, my grandmother was an educator, but I didn’t think that’s what I wanted to do. But as I said, when I was in high school and beginning college, the world was a different place and people didn’t really think women could do a lot of things. I think if the world was a more open place, then I probably would have become a medical doctor. As time went on, I think one of the big things that was a different in my life—I went to Utah Girls State the summer after my junior year of high school and ran for office. I had run for office in my high school, but my father was actually my high school principal, and it was in the era of anti-administration, so that was a negative thing to have, to be connected to the administration. I never won anything I tried for. When I went to Girls State, I won everything I tried for. In fact, leaders and other girls were shocked that I didn’t try to run for governor to run all of Girls State, but I didn’t have the self-confidence at the time. I learned a lot about running for offices and that people did believe I could be a leader, that I had the skills and abilities to do that. 5 Years later, after I had just had my eighth child, I had thought about it several times over the years, but I decided I wanted to run for the school board. I thought there should be mothers of children in the schools on part of the board instead of just businessmen. I put in an application, they interviewed seven people, and they ended up choosing me, this mother of all these kids, and most everyone else was a businessman. The local hospital administrator was very upset that they chose me instead of him. Just a few months later, I had to run for re-election for my position, and he ran against me and figured he would win because he was the president of all the local community and service clubs and things like that. It was a really close race, but I won. Part of why I won, I believe, is because I’m really good with numbers. When we would have debates or discussions, I knew what the budget was and what percentage was spent in different areas, and I think that really impressed people to see: that I wasn’t just a young mother, but somebody who had the skills and abilities to do it. Shortly after I became a member of the board, one of our board members resigned, so I was appointed to be the vice chair in his place. Less than a year later, it was time elect new board leadership, and I was elected as the chair and served for two years, and then two years later, I was re-elected as the chair. You could not follow yourself in the chair position; when I wasn’t the chair, they put me in as vice-chair again. So I served in leadership on the school board. I had to resign from the school board once I became a teacher because I couldn’t be the boss of the school district and work for the school district at the same time. In 6 Utah, school boards are considered the employer for everyone in the district because they’re elected parents and local business leaders. I began teaching and enjoyed it and went back and started working on my master’s in reading. People at school and at the university started asking me to help with things and be in charge of things. I recognized that other people saw that I could be a leader. The sad part is, I had a couple of principals I felt like were not supportive of the teachers, and I decided that I wanted to be a leader that was supportive of teachers. I think it's pretty sad that some administrators aren't as supportive of the teachers as they could be. I finished my degree and did my internship, and it took a few years, but I finally was selected to be an administrator at a school. MH: Perfect. Can you tell us about some of your core values and how they have influenced your leadership experiences and abilities? TG: I think my most important core value is to value other people, to recognize that every person has skills, talents, and abilities. Every person is worthy of being loved and cared for, and especially as a teacher, those were important. But as time went on, I recognized they're even more important for an administrator, especially because I’m at a middle school with eighth and ninth grade students. It's a very difficult time in young people's lives, and they make a lot of difficult decisions. Some of them are probably not the most positive for them in their futures, and I just have to always remember that they are still great people and that they need to know that I care about them. I'm never trying to be mean, 7 vindictive, or authoritative to them. I'm trying to help them do things that will help them in their future. Especially in today's world, you're nervous sometimes about saying things to students. Just last week, we had a student come to our school, who I had been his sixth-grade teacher. He's had a lot of really hard things happen in his life. He's been in the juvenile court system, detention; he's been taken out of his home and he's in guardianship with another family now. A lot of it was not his fault. Things happen to young people they have no control over. When he walked into our building and came into the office and saw me, I yelled his name and said, ''I'm so happy to see you, can I give you a hug?" He just ran to me and hugged me. That was on Thursday. On Tuesday this week in first hour, there was an incident in class and he said something very inappropriate with a guest speaker. The teacher brought him to the office, and for the next 15 or 20 minutes, this young man called me every vile name he could think of, and said the f-word, shouted the f-word at me probably 25 times. Finally, my secretary heard through the door and went and got another administrator to come to the office. I just have to remind myself every day to be calm. “It’s okay. They will survive, and of course, so will I.” Finally, at the end of the time, I walked him down to our teacher who deals with our behavior students and he spent about an hour down there. Then he came back and was very humble and told me how sorry he was for the way he had acted. This young man lived for six months with 17-year-olds from very 8 difficult inner-city areas of Ogden and Salt Lake. He has seen many things that kids his age shouldn’t have to see. I have to remember to be kind, be patient, let the kids know I truly care about them. I try and treat the teachers and the rest of my staff the same way. I know everyone's name. I am not good with names, I am much better at remembering numbers, but I probably know 400 of our 800 kids by name. Even if I don't remember their name, I always smile and say, "How are you doing? How are things going?" If you're on my “F” list, which is often over 200, about 25% of the school at different days of the week—I guess that's part of why I remember numbers. I can see kids in the hall and I can say, "Hey, how is your F coming in Language Arts? Are you working on it? What else do you need? Can I help you?” Because I've been a math teacher, I have quite a few kids who come in and ask me to help them if they need help with their math. I want kids to know that I'm not just the police or gestapo of the school, but that I really care about them and want to help them be successful. LC: Can you tell us about a person that has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe someone who has been a mentor to you in your life? Exactly why and how did they impact your life and your leadership ability specifically? TG: When I was on the school board, my vice chair for two years, who then became the chair after me, was a man in our district who had been teaching in another district. I think he taught 35 years in the Ogden District at Roy Junior High. As we were together those eight years on the board, he kept telling me, “You need to go 9 back and become a teacher. You're such a great leader, you need to become a principal.” Through the years of finishing my degree and not getting a job, he would call me occasionally and say, "Don't give up, don't get discouraged! You're going to be an amazing administrator. Hang in there, keep going, keep trying.” It really helps to have someone who you feel trusts you, believes in you, has confidence in you. My husband also has always been very supportive and confident and encouraging. At one point he said, “Don't worry about it. Don't be an administrator, just be a teacher. It is a whole lot easier; you don't have to work in the summer, you are just in the classroom, you don't have to deal with all the problems, etc.” I said, "I think I need to be an administrator. I think the students and teachers need to have someone they know and trust and they know has their back." I think that people just encouraging me, them telling me that I did have the skills to be a positive leader, really helped. MH: I love that. What was his name? TG: Clark Siddoway. MH: What do you see as being the biggest challenge of being a woman or a minority leader in Northern Utah, and what do you do to overcome these challenges? TG: There's still a lot of negatives about being a woman—prejudice about being a woman. When the school year began this year, we thought we would be getting about 50 more students than we had the last year. Our building is 52 years old; it was not set up for today's world and today's students. Every student now has a 10 backpack that is so big, it looks like another student is riding piggyback on their back. No, really. They all wear really big backpacks. We knew when we were getting 50 more students, we would not be able to fit us all in the halls. We kept thinking, “Do we change the schedule, do we change pass times, how is this going to work?” This summer, I was sitting there looking out into the open area as you come into the school—it’s very small—and thinking how last year it was so tight you could not walk through it. Sometimes kids were late for class because they couldn't get through the congestion at the "T" of the school, where the three hallways come together. I had an idea come to me. Our school had an addition put on in the ‘80s. It was originally built in the ‘60s, but had an addition put on in the ‘80s. There is kind of a "U" shaped area at the front of the school where it has a landing and the stairs go down. I went out and looked at it and took a tape measure and measured. We could add 500 square feet to the beginning of our school because they were already planning on putting new cement in that entrance. Instead of putting the cement like it had been, if they made it level to the front of the building where the two halves are equal and then put the stairs in front of that and moved the doors back… I told my principal, “Why don't we have them do this? If they're doing the cement anyway, it's going to be almost no cost. They have to move the doors and extend the roof. That's it!” I thought it was a great idea. I told the facilities director that we should do that, but he ignored me. I talked to the principal about it again later—it was 11 actually last spring we talked about it—and he finally went to the facilities director and said, “We're serious, we really want to do this. We think this is a good idea because we don't have enough room.” He said, “It would cost $1.4 million, we could never do that.” Well, that's not even real. Every person that talked to me said that he would never do that because a woman suggested it. It's a little discouraging at times knowing that even in my own building, my head custodian never wants to listen if it is my suggestion. He always has an excuse or a reason why anything I suggest, ask, request won't work. Even today, I went to him and said, “Our drama teacher needs a key to the costume closet. Do you have one?” He said, “Oh no. We've gone through so many drama teachers they've taken them all.” “Okay, then I believe we should re-key that door and get new keys so the drama teacher has keys to the costume closet.” He said, “Well, then you'll have to call the district.” I said, “Well, maybe I will.” He then went, “Well, maybe I have one. I'll have to go check, but maybe I have an extra one.” He went and looked and the classroom next to it, which used the be the music room. It has a key in it; its key fit to the costume closet. He came to me and said, “I found it. Number 37 fits.” I said, “Great. Let's make a copy of it, so we still have a master, and give the copy to the drama teacher.” 12 “No, we've just lost so many already. I'll just give it to him and then if we lose it, I'll just rekey it later.” So, even when I suggest something that is the most logical, I have a couple men in my building that will never do it if I'm the one who suggests it. Even some women don't want to have a woman tell them what to do. We have a consultant from the district that comes in about four times a year to meet with the two administrators to go over some of our challenges. A couple months ago, he came in, and I was telling him some of my frustrations with a teacher and he said, “Mrs. Garrett, you need to go to her and you tell her, ‘You may not say that. You may not write on that student's report card that you don't accept retakes on the test.’” Our school policy is everyone can retake a test. He said, “You tell her she will not write that on the student’s report card, and if she does it, that is insubordination and you will write her up.” Now, I felt that was a little too strong, but even so, there are female veteran teachers that don't want a female telling them what they think they should do. She has taught longer than I have, so she doesn't think I should be able to tell her what to do. It's interesting. LC: That is interesting, even today. It’s crazy. MH: I know. That it still exists in 2018, it’s crazy. LC: Now, even with all of that, what advice would you have for young women who are coming into this world? What would you tell them? TG: Don't ever be afraid. The most important thing is that you believe in what you're doing; that you're not doing it for money or for power, but you're becoming a 13 leader because you have strong feelings, strong ideals, strong passion for what you're doing, and then just do it. It's going to be harder than it is for a man. It's going to take longer than it probably should, but eventually, people will realize that you have the skills and that you will be able to make a difference and that it will be to their benefit to give you the opportunity. If you have found your passion, keep working toward it. Don't ever give up. Just keep being positive. Just keep looking around and asking yourself, “What else do I need to do? What other skills do I need to develop within myself?” and I believe it will eventually happen. It may take longer and it may be harder, but you have the power and the passion. Keep working and it will happen. MH: Any other insights you want to share about being a woman or minority leader in Northern Utah? TG: There is a women's—I was going to look on my email to see what the exact title is, but it’s women's business or women's leadership—there's a group in Northern Utah and a lot of their meetings are in Salt Lake. The sad thing is, as a school administrator, I don't have time to go to their conferences and their monthly meetings, and I keep thinking, “I should make time for this.” But I spend a lot of time at my school. I am usually there by seven in the morning and it is usually five or later when I leave. My secretary said to me today, “What's going on?” I asked why and she said, “Well, the principal came 40 minutes after you, and here he is leaving already, and I know you won't be leaving 'till five o'clock.” 14 Along with your passion is your desire to do your best, and we all could walk out of the job by a time clock. But if I am going to be prepared and know who the students are who need extra help, know who needs the extra help in math, know who has four failing classes right now because of attendance… Ninth grade boys think they're too cool sometimes. I have several cowboys at my school right now who think it's not cool to be a good student, so it's almost like they're working together to fail their classes. I have to know who those kids are and work with them and talk with them and see them in the hall every day. I have to know that this one is failing his language arts class because he still hasn't turned in his Boy in the Striped Pajamas project. That one is failing his earth systems class because he hasn't turned in his essay, and that is half of his grade at this point. I spend a lot of time knowing what is expected in classes and knowing what kids are missing so I can say to them, “How close are you on that essay? Can we get it turned in tonight?” I think another thing that is difficult for me, is when I graduated and became a legal secretary, I typed on an IBM electric typewriter. Everything was on legal size paper with four carbon copies. If I made a mistake, then I could erase one time all those carbons and it looked okay. Otherwise, I would rip the whole stack out and start all over. It wasn't long after I began working that they got copy machines. but they couldn't be used for legal documents because they turned pink from the chemicals from the ink the copies were made with. As time went on, we got computers and the world has just changed so much since I began my career. 15 Because I am an administrator, people think I know how to do everything. Like, “Hey, Mrs. Garrett, we need you to go fix the sound system in this class. I can make the movie play, but there is no sound.” Well, someone had unhooked the switch that goes in the back. Everyone expects me to be able to run all the SMART boards. While I taught, I never used a smartboard, so I don't always know how to make it work. One of the math teachers—and I taught math, but I didn't teach ninth grade secondary math—one of my teachers had to leave the classroom and said, “Oh everything is just on the SMART board.” I went down and flipped through a few pages and I said, “Okay, who can tell me what a recursive function is?” So, that's sometimes a challenge, but usually I can figure it out. Technology has changed so much. The world is a different place. Every one of my students are probably more knowledgeable about technology than I am. Our district—and many districts are already here but our district is not—our district is working to make sure their finances are such that every student next year in eighth grade will get a Chromebook. They will pay a $30 fee, you've all paid those textbook fees; well, their $30 textbook fee will go towards their Chromebook. They will have their same Chromebook all through high school because we don't have textbooks anymore. My students at school, my eighth and ninth graders, everything is on Canvas, just like the university has done. I am constantly saying to parents, “Do you have a computer at home? Do you have internet access? Your child knows 16 how to get on and do their digital homework. They know how to get on and check their homework on Canvas. They know how to get on and watch the video and answer the questions or write the paper.” That's a big change for our district that we are going to put so much money toward: every student having their own Chromebook. Right now, every student in our school—well, this year we bought two more Chromebook lab carts with 36 Chromebooks in them. We have a Chromebook lab in every language arts and science class. With the new core, science has to do a lot of writing. My students asked why they had to write in science, and I told them, “What good does it make to do a discovery if you don't write about it and share it with other people, so they can reproduce your work and extend on from your work?” Writing is really an important part of science now in our schools. We have six computer labs in our schools; three of those are for students to learn programs such as Excel and PowerPoint and Word. Three of the labs are to teach students computer programs, but we also have three PC labs for students to do research and write papers. Then we have our Chromebook labs. Each lab has about 36 computers, so we have a lot of money in technology in our building. Every single teacher has a SMART board. When we were getting them at my other school, they were about $2,500 per classroom. The cost has gone down, but a lot of our resources go to technology in the schools now… LC: Wow. MH: …which is good. 17 TG: When I was on the school board and they adopted new language arts books, it was about $180,000 to buy textbooks for the whole district. Now, we pay almost that much for digital textbooks. It's very different. One of the things we were talking about earlier was backpacks. We made a rule that you cannot carry backpacks. When you come to school, put it in your locker. You're not taking it to every class. It's amazing how much more room there is in the halls because there isn't a backpack hanging off every kid’s back. But kids really have had a hard time, and I had a mother call, very upset, asking why I told her son he couldn't take his backpack. I asked her what she thought he had in his backpack. She said, “Well, all of his stuff, his books.” I said, “Do you realize there are not textbooks in our building? Your son has no textbooks. What else does he need in his backpack?” Then there was just silence. We expect our students to have a notebook, we expect them to have a reading book, and we expect them to have a pencil. You can carry that all in your hand. The world is a different place. MH: It is. Do you have anything else? LC: No. MH: Well, thank you so much, Mrs. Garrett. 18