Mrs. Young: Building relationships
In Knight Life’s mission to get an understanding of the new staff at West Florence, it seemed right to sit down and talk with the people who help make our castle run as smoothly as possible: the administration, one of which is Sherry Young of the new Assistant Principals.
Young is one of five new assistant principals here at WF. She single handedly takes care of 10th-12th graders with the last names R through Z. She graduated from Furman University in 1989, receiving her B.S. Mathematics degree, an
d later her M.Ed. from University of South Carolina. She is also a National Board Certified Teacher. She’s been an educator for almost 30 years and started at Johnsonville, then Hemingway and worked her way to South Florence, where she taught for 11 years. She eventually left to teach at a school in Newnan, Georgia, returned to South Florence and has now finally come to WF.
However, after all of that, she still maintains the same goal.
“My main goal has been building relationships, and it’s still a work in progress. A lot of times when you hit those rough spots, it’s a lot easier to deal with and handle if you’ve built that relationship and trust with people,” she said.
When new places can be hard to deal with, it’s easy to just give up. This has not been the case for Young. She’s a firm believer that change can be good, and that it’s often times necessary for places that have been through rough times, such as West Florence.
“Change was needed, and unfortunately sometimes when change is needed, you have to bring in some new faces. I think West Florence has unlimited potential. We have to be better than best,” she said.
Young knew she wanted to be a teacher from a very young age and has had very good experiences with her own teachers. She also believes in student-focused schools and putting the students’ needs first.
Young feels that family is extremely important and had an amazing father with a strong work ethic who inspired her to be the person she is today. She has two daughters and a husband. Her eldest is a pharmacy technician, and her youngest is a junior at Winthrop University and is majoring in education, much like her mother.
Her dream for retirement is to travel. She enjoys seeing the country and loves the idea of packing up the family RV and just hitting the road.
Something people might be surprised to find out about her is that she is an avid lover of sports and even coached several sports; including volleyball, softball, basketball.
Young is one of many administrators in our school who feels that enforcing school rules like dress code and IDs are a necessity in our school. She wants the students of West Florence to know that every rule is for a distinct reason. They teach students life skills and ways to keep up with routine and ways that will eventually help in adult lives.
Young intends to keep up with these traditions and rules in the future so that one day students can proudly say where they graduated from, and what lessons their school taught them. They were Knights.
