Bay View's Colleen Gribbin is 2007 'RI Principal of the Year'

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EAST PROVIDENCE - There are at least 860 reasons why Colleen Gribbin has been selected Rhode Island Principal of the Year for 2007, and you'll find them on the campus of St. Mary Academy-Bay View in East Providence.

It's the first time the Rhode Island Association of Secondary School Principals has bestowed the prestigious honor on a Catholic schools administrator, and Gribbin confesses to being surprised, noting that parochial school professionals "don't get recognition in the public arena."

She got the news in a telephone call from RIASP Executive Director Joseph J. Pasonelli, and will be honored May 24 at their meeting, as well as invited to special ceremonies in Washington, D.C., with other outstanding principals from around the country.

A visit to the multi-building campus of Bay View, just five miles from downtown Providence, soon demonstrates why Gribbin was selected for the honor.

Her office door on the first floor of the high school is always open, and "interaction with the kids, being able to help and support them" is at the top of her list of personal goals and satisfactions. "Kids can get an education anwhere," she believes. "It's the environment that makes the difference."

At Bay View, that means an atmosphere that encourages students to excel in their fields of interest, whether that be academics, visual arts, performing arts, or athletics. Should they encounter difficulty, Gribbin's there. "They are very confident; they come right in to talk with no hesitation," she says.

Case in point: Last Thursday morning the principal met with 12 students who had transferred from other schools to Bay View this year. She was effusive about "the mutual respect, the camaraderie among them. Not one expressed regret at her decision. They decided for themselves that they had to make a change, to stand up, leave, make new friends. One girl said the only time she ever saw her guidance counselor in her former school was when she signed the papers to leave."

Gribbin, in contrast, makes it a point to know every student by name. More, she learns "what they're struggling with."

Like the Spanish student whose difficulty stemmed from a change in teachers, Gribbin learned early in the week. But by Thursday, when the principal did a follow-up check, "She was okay."

When Gribbin leaves her office to give a tour of the school, she makes certain a cell phone is in her pocket just in case. She is more likely to be in the hallways, at extra-curricular activities, mingling with students and parents, even attending sports practices than to be anchored behind her desk. Now, with Karen Hanrahan, director of institutional advancement, she takes a visitor through the spacious halls from one classroom to another, beginning with what Hanrahan describes as "math terror." That may be an affliction of older generations, or even today at some schools. Not at Bay View, where an $83,000 Champlin Foundations grant in 2006 resulted in "smart boards" for the math labs. All the students were actively engaged in the classes visited; none seemed remotely afraid of the subject.

The same is true of the extensive science program offered, enhanced by a $100,000 Champlin grant in 2004 for the conceptual physics program. Meantime, in the adjoining chemistry classroom, girls wearing protective eye gear were confidently mixing brews in test tubes as part of the day's experiment.

"The number of graduates majoring in engineering, math and science has jumped dramatically," Gribbin noted with satisfaction, proving that at Bay View, at least, the idea that girls aren't interested in and can't do rigorous work in these fields is pure myth.

Coming up the staircase is 11th-grader Nicole Annarummo of Rehoboth, who stops long enough to chat.

"I transferred last year," she explains. "I love it here." Gribbin, she nods, certainly deserves the accolades. "She's funny. She's a character," giggles Annarummo. "Every time I see her, it's like, laughs."

The irrepressible 16-year-old is a member of the school's sailing team, which is already out on the waters of Narragansett Bay. "We've been sailing for two weeks. It's freezing but I love it." Last year, the number of intrepid mariners was 13; this year, Annarummo notes, it's up to 31.

Emily Kaczmarck of East Greenwich, also 16 and in 11th grade, has been at Bay View for five years. "I'm heavily involved in music and theater, and Bay View is a perfect fit," she says. She's won a number of awards already, most recently for her role as a teacher in Lillian Hellman's provocative play The Children's Hour, which has brought Bay View to the finals in state theater competition.

Gribbin's and the faculty's support of her efforts have been foremost in achieving her goals, she says. While one suspects that every student at Bay View could tell a Colleen Gribbin story, the most poignant one on this day comes from sophomore Molly Thomsen of Rumford. A Bay View student since seventh grade, she says of the principal, "We have a history together."

Thomsen's mother died when Molly was only three years old. At the time, Gribbin was principal of St. Margaret in East Providence. "I was too young for pre-school, but she let me and a friend in three months early," Thomsen explains. "She and my mom were friends."

It's that kind of personal concern and care that led to Gribbin's current position when, 11 years ago, the school's search committee was seeking a new principal. Sister Elizabeth McAuliffe, president of the academy for the past 13 years, spearheaded that effort, selecting Gribbin as the first lay person ever to head the school, a ministry of the Sisters of Mercy.

"We have never regretted it," she says over coffee in her warmly-welcoming office on campus. Noting Gribbin is an associate of the Sisters of Mercy, and was well-known and highly respected as principal of St. Margaret, McAuliffe says "no one was shocked" by her appointment. "She had such credibility," the sister explains. "People were delighted. She's able to attract students here because they already knew and liked her."

Gribbin describes the Bay View faculty as "absolutely phenomenal." McAuliffe in turn says of their principal: "Colleen identifies so well with the faculty. They really believe she is out for their best interests, even while continually saying students come first. That does not mean that faculty come second...she has a way of doing it that I admire."

Importantly, McAuliffe says, "Colleen encourages faculty to take on controversial issues and have students grapple with them, have conversations about them, get the Catholic view but learn to think critically."

Bay View follows diocesan guidelines, and as well is dedicated to the mission principles of the Sisters of Mercy, which McAuliffe defines as such concerns as "relationship to the environment, issues dealing with women and children, globalization."

A critical goal at Bay View, she sums, is to help girls and young women "gain their own voice on issues, grow through their adolescence to learn how to do that so they have confidence in themselves. The emphasis here is to give them a good knowledge base so they can articulate their viewpoints."

Sister McAuliffe closes with a story. "One of the kindergarten students recently said to her mother, 'Mom, don't you wish you were six, like me, so you could go to Bay View?'"

Absolutely, said her mother.

Gribbin isn't six years old, and she doesn't have to wish. She's at Bay View virtually every waking moment with her girls and her faculty. "The kids know what we expect," she sums. "We don't hesitate to put our morals and values out there and they rise to the occasion."

That's certainly another in what may be an endless number of reasons why Colleen Gribbin is Principal of the Year if not the century.

Colleen Gribbin at a glance...

Prior to coming to St. Mary Bay View Academy, Colleen Gribbin was principal at. St. Margaret School in East Providence and associate principal at Mercymount Country Day in Cumberland. She also taught at St. Thomas School in Providence and at Bay View.

Gribbin earned an elementary education degree from the University of Southern Maine and a master's in administration and a certificate in graduate studies in counseling from Rhode Island College.

A native of Central Falls, she attended Holy Trinity Elementary School in Central Falls and Notre Dame High School until it closed, completing her senior year at Central Falls High School. A resident of Cumberland, she has three brothers and two sisters.

Gribbin is on the Principals Committee of the RI Interscholastic League, the Strategic Planning Board and Board of Trustees for Sophia Academy, the RISE Board of Directors and the Network Board for Mercy Education.

She embraces the Sisters of Mercy model for education: "A values-centered curriculum based on tradition and inspired by innovation."

St. Mary Bay View Academy at a glance...

An independent Catholic school for girls in grades pre-K-12, St. Mary Bay View Academy was founded in 1874 by the Sisters of Mercy and is located at 3070 Pawtucket Ave., Riverside, RI.

Initially, Bay View was co-educational through the eighth grade, but a decision was made in the late 1980s to become an all-girls' school. Boys remained through their eighth year "until the last little guy walked out" in the early 1990s, according to Karen Hanrahan, director of institutional advancement.

There are approximately 240 elementary school students, 260 in the middle school and 600 in the high school. All are in separate buildings on a campus that also includes a new building housing a gymnasium and fitness center. The middle and high schools are connected by a "skyway." Formerly, students had scampered through an underground tunnel, but a devastating fire in the late 1940s destroyed the high school; it was rebuilt with the skyway.

Since becoming principal at Bay View, Colleen Gribbin has been responsible for moving the junior high into a middle school concept, incorporating interdisciplinary curricula, instituting grade level teams and increasing enrollment in the middle school by more than 30 percent. The middle school is the only all-girls middle school in the state.

Bay View draws students from 38 Rhode Island communities, as well as from southeastern Massachusetts. They travel by bus, parent carpool or they drive themselves. Hanrahan said a large number of students come from Warwick and Cranston. The school welcomes students of all ethnic and religious backgrounds.

The college preparatory school is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

For further information, call 401-434-0113 or visit www.smabv.org

(This article originally appeared in The Providence Journal)