By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
As students returned to Birmingham City Schools for the start of the 2024-25 School Year on Monday, Birmingham Superintendent Mark Sullivan, Ed.D., traveled the city welcoming students, teachers, counselors, principals and numerous support staff back from the summer break.
Sullivan began at Brown Elementary and from there made visits to Green Acres Middle School, Central Park Elementary and Woodlawn High School, where he is a graduate.
At Woodlawn, the superintendent, with Principal Rameka Davis leading, popped into the lunchroom; an early college prep class; a cosmetology class that offers skills needed to become licensed hair stylists; and a visual arts class decorated with creative work by students.
He did more than visit. He brought words of encouragement.
“Do not be afraid to fail,” he told students in the early college prep class. “Failure is a pathway to success. I have not gotten everything that I’ve always wanted. Failure is what you learn from. Any person who has been successful failed many times … [Dr. Seuss whose first book was rejected 27 times] submitted his books until he got one ‘yes.’ If he had stopped after one, after two, after three, after four then he would not be the person you know as Dr. Seuss” the children’s author and cartoonist who penned many of the most popular children’s books of all time.
“Even Thomas Edison, who invented the lightbulb, it took time after time after time, and each time he failed he said, ‘rather than I’ve failed I’m closer and closer to success.’ … don’t ever give up,” Sullivan told students. “Be resilient. ‘The race is not won by the swift, it’s won by the person who persists to the end.’ You just have to keep moving forward.”
One focus this school year will be post-graduation success, Sullivan has said. A new Department for Post Secondary Success has been created in partnership with the Birmingham Promise. The goal will be to help students better connect to internships and dual enrollment opportunities.
Birmingham Promise provides up to four years of tuition assistance for graduates of Birmingham City Schools who attend public colleges and universities in Alabama. It also manages a paid internship program that allows high school seniors to build work experience
Several other programs are in place to help with academic achievement. “iReady” is a reading and math program that monitors and tracks progress to help better gauge academic advancement in each school. Magic Learning is another existing program that supports virtual learning opportunities for students with unique schedules. And Intercession, which provides students with up to four weeks of additional in-school time, remains, said the superintendent.
“Intercession provides support for our students. We give them enrichments, credit advancement, we do remediation for our students. That’s one of the programs we want to continue,” he told Birmingham’s WBMA ABC 3340.
