Jean Hall has spent her life in education as a teacher, principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent with the Leflore County School District.
For Hall, 63, it has been a wonderful life.
“I have worked for 38 years with the Leflore County School District. I have actually worked in education for 42½ years. I worked with the Manpower Development and Training Center at Mississippi Valley State University. They hired me right after college. I started there in March 1969,” she said.
On Thursday, Hall was preparing to turn over the keys to her office to her successor, Viola Williams, who defeated Hall in November.
Hall said she’s leaving the district in very good shape with improvements in student performance, based on state Department of Education testing results in September.
The state assigns each district as well as individual schools one of the following performance labels: Star School, High Performing, Successful, Academic Watch, Low Performing, At Risk of Failing or Failing.
The Leflore County School District went from “Academic Watch” in 2010 to “Successful” in 2011.
Hall said she’s proud to be leaving on such a high note.
“I know we’ve been criticized about bragging about the school district being successful, but isn’t it wonderful that you can brag that you are successful instead of not being able to brag?” she said.
Hall said the effort “took a lot of hard work” from the faculty, staff and students.
Hall, the oldest daughter of the late Josh Brown Sr. and Claudine Brown, said education was stressed at home at an early age.
Back when she was 4, her father had the alphabet and numbers up to 100 on the back of a door. “Every night, we had to get up and point to alphabets or our numbers,” she said. “Sometimes he had a pointer and he would put it on that letter or that number and we had to say it immediately.”
Hall was born into a family of sharecroppers, and work in the field was part of her childhood. School operated on a “split session” system that enabled youngsters to help in the fields. It was in the cotton fields of Leflore County in August or September that Hall, a seventh- or eighth-grader, decided to go into education.
“To be honest about it, it was, ‘If I could go to school and get me a college degree, I wouldn’t have to be in this cotton field,’” she said.
Hall graduated fifth in a class of 105 seniors at Amanda Elzy High School in 1965. She received a bachelor’s degree in business education from Jackson State College, now Jackson State University, in 1969.
After entering the work force, Hall obtained a master’s degree in business education and a master’s degree in elementary education from Delta State University.
She also holds a specialist degree in school administration from Delta State.
She said her favorite education job was that of principal, a position she served in for 17 years at Rising Sun Elementary School, later renamed Claudine Brown after Hall’s mother.
“To me, those were some of the best days because I had direct contact with the students and the parents,” she said.
As a principal, she told teachers to treat all children as if they were the grandchildren of the president of the United States, regardless of whether it was George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton.
In July 2004, she was appointed assistant superintendent for the district by Superintendent Cedell Pulley, her brother-in-law.
Hall’s sister, Margie Pulley, now is superintendent for the Greenwood School District.
The new job, and a new federal law, presented some challenges.
“When I first started as assistant superintendent, we had trained teachers, but then we had No Child Left Behind that came into play,” she said. “Teachers not only had to be certified, with a license from Mississippi; they had to be highly qualified, which meant that they had to complete all of the requirements in order to get a license from the state.
“That was a struggle, but we do have some fine teachers working in the district, and we were able to get the teachers we could not find, especially in math, science and English, through Teach for America,” she said.
The new teachers have made an impact, she said: “They are young, they are energetic and I think that had a lot to do with us moving the school district forward.”
Hall said three straight years of budget cuts at the state level have been handled extremely well.
“It came from planning and a good business manager who would remind me that you just can’t buy everything that you think you need,” she said. “I have to say thanks to Mr. Doug Segars, our business manager, who spoke up and said, ‘Mrs. Hall, this is not something you can afford to do.’”
She said her background in business education also helped to keep her priorities focused.
Hall said the district has a good record of getting grants in recent years covering professional development to physical plant improvements. It “is in good shape, academically, financially and athletically,” she said.
Hall does plan one last official act as superintendent. She will be with the Amanda Elzy Marching Band as it performs in the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., on Monday.
Hall is married to Alfred Hall, and they have three grown children. They are Alfred Hall II, and his wife, Lasonya Harris Hall; Algeno Jackson, and his wife, Sonya Jackson; and Aleshia Hall Campbell and her husband, Jason Campbell.
She also is looking forward to spending time with her five grandchildren, and a sixth is on the way.
A lifelong member of Spring Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Hall said she has a simple philosophy about life.
“Be as honest as you can be, especially when you are asked a question,” she said. “I’ve always been trained that if you tell the truth up front, you don’t have to worry about, ‘What did I say?’ later,” she said.
“I believe if you do the right thing, your blessings will come, not necessarily from people but from the Almighty,” Hall said.
