Initially, Michele Lewis aspired to be a professional journalist.
She was on the newspaper staff and yearbook staff at Gosnell High School. She even worked for a weekly community newspaper in Blytheville called The Village News.
“My teacher actually got me a part-time job working for the newspaper,” Lewis said, “and it turned into a full-time job, and that’s what I did through college.”
She said the newspaper put her on the education beat, and she would go out to the schools and wrote feature stories and took photos. That’s where she fell in love with the idea of being a teacher.
“I switched my major and ended up in education,” Lewis said.
Lewis was recently named the new principal for Parkway Elementary School, a brand-new school scheduled to open in the fall for the Bryant School District. It will be at the corner of Hilldale and Hilltop roads in Alexander.
“Ms. Lewis was the person to open our new elementary school,” Bryant Superintendent Karen Walters said in a statement. “One of her biggest strengths is building relationships with students, staff and parents.
“She has proven her dedication to academic success by raising achievement at her current school. We are confident she will work tirelessly to put students’ needs first while building a positive culture at Parkway Elementary.”
Lewis is currently the principal at Davis Elementary and has been since 2013.
“Every day is different,” Lewis said. “I have had the opportunity to meet so many wonderful families, but the best part about it is to have such a huge influence in the lives of children.
“The biggest part of my job is to make sure my teachers have everything they need and support those teachers so that they, in turn, can do what’s best for kids.”
Lewis, who lives in Alexander, earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Arkansas State University-Jonesboro in 1992 and a master’s degree in 1996. She also completed an educational-leadership program of study from Harding University in Searcy in 2008 for additional educational-leadership licensure.
Pam Kenney, director of elementary education and student assessment for the Bryant School District, said she has known Lewis for close to 20 years and believes she is the perfect person for the job.
“She has the background to do this,” Kenney said. “She is great at working with people and getting them to work together. She has great ability to do that.
“I think that one of her strongest skill sets is she is very knowledgeable and one of these who continues to learn.”
Lewis said one of the things she has accomplished at Davis is improving test scores, a task that did not happen overnight.
“This little school had consistently scored the lowest in the district when it comes to state-mandated tests,” she said. “We would be deflated when we saw [the scores].
“This year, we led the district in third-grade writing and fourth-grade writing and math. It was incredible when I shared that information with my staff.”
To finally see the results this year was a highlight of being a principal for Lewis.
“We were just so pumped about it,” she said. “There was a huge celebration.”
Prior to being principal at Davis Elementary, Lewis served as assistant principal for Collegeville Elementary School and Salem Elementary School from July 2010 to July 2012. She served as assistant principal strictly at Salem Elementary from July 2012 to September 2013.
From 2007 to 2010, Lewis had worked as the school counselor for Davis Elementary. She was also a school counselor at Blytheville Primary School from 1996 to 2007.
“Each one of these things has had a special place in my life, but I think I have enjoyed counseling more because I got to work one on one with students,” Lewis said. “I love being a principal, though.
“Of all the jobs that I have had, being a principal is probably the most rewarding and probably the job I spent the most time preparing for.”
She said being a counselor came easy because that’s just the kind of person she is.
“Being a principal, I had to learn to take on a different role,” Lewis said. “By nature, I wanted everybody to be happy and fix everything, and in this role, you can’t always make everybody happy.
“That was difficult for me to accept.”
But Lewis said being a principal allows her to have a huge influence in everything that goes in these kids’ lives — “building a trusting relationship and letting each one of them know they are important and valued and have so much to offer the world.”
Kenney said one of the biggest challenges Lewis will face with opening the new school is building relationships between the staff, the students and the parents — “bringing them together and making them feel welcome. It is hard to change schools. She will have to bring them together.”
But one positive is that because Lewis is already a part of a school in the Bryant system, she doesn’t have to learn its policies.
“She already knows them; she has a heads up,” Kenney said. “There is nothing there that should be surprising. She can use all of her great skills to pull that staff together and help kids, parents adjust to a new school.
“It is a change for everybody.”
Lewis said it is a kind of scary transition.
“You have to be successful because you are laying the groundwork and creating the culture of that school,” Lewis said. “You are creating and establishing the traditions at that school. You are going to be the person opening a new building. You are going to be the one developing relationships with the families and students, and making it [a school] that is positive and promotes a culture of learning.”
Lewis said that as soon as the district rezones and she knows where the students will come from, she wants to get out to those schools and meet the students.
“I want to set up meetings with those parents, host meet-and-greet activities, and let them have an active role in naming the mascot and picking the colors [if the district allows it],” Lewis said. “I want them to be as excited as I am about this new school.”
Lewis said the first week at the new school will be challenging — for everyone — as any new building will have kinks to work out.
“People aren’t going to know anything about it,” Lewis said. “I need people to know we are going to take care of them, and we are going to do everything we can to make sure they have the best experience possible.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.