Esther heads for new challenges
Esther is moving on to St Brigid’s NS in Ballysax, where she takes up the post of administrative principal.
“It’s very hard for me to leave Brannoxtown,” she admitted last week as she sat in the empty school working on administrative details. “I’ve had a fantastic time here, I’ve learned a lot, and I have met some wonderful children and wonderful parents.”
Complimenting those same parents and children for their ‘terrific energy’, Esther notes that there are ‘great things’ happening in Brannoxtown NS as she leaves.
“We have been given a devolved grant for four new classrooms, and we’re working very hard at getting work started on these before the summer holidays end. In place of decrepit buildings which have been used for years, the children and teachers will be getting bright new classrooms which they really deserve.”
Moving to St Brigid’s is another step in a career which has included teaching in St Josephs NS in Halverstown, and Athgarvan NS. But it is in a way also closing a circle, because her very first teaching position was in Brownstown NS, which was replaced by St Brigid’s.
“I’m looking forward to leading a larger school, where I can devote all my energies to the work of an administrative principal. Though I will miss the teaching side; in Brannoxtown my first responsibility was to the children sitting in front of me, and when they went home I then got down to the administrative work. But with a family too, that can all be quite draining.”
Esther’s new post will have many similarities to what she is leaving, but on a larger scale. “I’ll be dealing with the same sets of policies, but with many more people. There are going to be a lot of children’s names I’ll have to learn first, and later their parents’ names.”
Although administration will be her main work, the role of a principal in any school is much more than that, Esther says. “You are a teacher, an administrator, a medical person, a counsellor, a disciplinarian, a comforter ... as well as dealing with architects, builders, the people who deliver the cleaning supplies. It’s never ending, and it is probably why the official job description hasn’t changed since the mid-70s. I think the Department is afraid to touch it.”
Esther will leave Brannoxtown on 23 September, and begin in Ballysax on Monday 26 September. “I already know the community there, and they have a wonderful spirit which I’m looking forward to tapping into.”
This article was first published in The Kildare Nationalist.
