Dawn Miller

Principal
Halifax, VA

When we first met Dawn Miller she was an elementary principal who had abandoned a lucrative career in IT to return home to her rural hometown to teach. Her quiet passion for making learning meaningful to children lights up any room. She shared on that first day talking with us her belief that children needed to see themselves in learning. When we asked her to describe what that would look like she shared, “I want kids to do during the school year what they did in a small summer program we created. I had a teacher develop a STEAM based curriculum around Black Panther --- children learned in an integrated way about Africa, they created costumes and were in a stage play. I would like to see more opportunities for children to integrate coding, math, arts, and science ….. and to have this occurring in the school year.” Dawn now serves as a middle school principal in her same hometown district and continues to work under pressure to ensure her high-poverty school sustains full state accreditation. In the face of that pressure Dawn exemplifies leadership strength as a principal who brings together the school community to see capabilities of learners as far more than state test numbers on a page and that sends a different message about what matters inside a school. 

Coming Home

Halifax County on the southern edge of Virginia seems like one of those places. For generations tobacco farms ruled, creating a thriving community where just about all the working adults could be found in the fields and curing barns owned by giant cigarette companies, or working in one of those small textile mills that dotted the South when companies sought to escape the unions of the northeast. In 1981, Virginia’s tobacco crop was worth $266 million, in 2010 its worth was about $78 million. The tobacco harvest collapsed across Virginia’s rural counties as manufacturers found a cheaper source of tobacco available from Africa, China, and South America. The textile mills were all closed by 2002 as companies again sought cheaper labor, primarily in Asia.

Driving into South Boston, the center of Halifax County, you see scenes of abandoned tobacco sheds and the ruins of the mills. A county that held over 41,000 people in 1950 now falls below 35,000. The poverty rate is over 15 percent. African Americans are 35% percent of the population, and life can be a struggle with one in four families living in federally defined poverty. 

But Halifax is not one of those places. Despite its struggles, despite the norm for these southern rural towns to fade from existence, despite the way children from communities like this typically leave family and farms behind, and migrate away... Halifax is not giving up.

Surprised She Was So Bright Coming From a Rural Town

Dawn Miller is the definition of the county’s commitment to its future. Growing up in Halifax county, the younger version of Dawn was a star student in schools that were just a couple of decades past segregation. Even though she was accepted by the University of Virginia or as Virginians refer to it, “Mr. Jefferson’s university,” she felt that the university saw her, as a young black woman from rural Halifax as not fitting the norm of the typical UVa student - white, middle to upper middle class, and educated in top public and private schools in the Commonwealth and beyond. As she spoke about her journey home to a career in education, she was reminded of a comment from one of her professors, a man whom she valued as a favorite teacher who shared with her one day that he was surprised she was so bright coming from a rural town. While Dawn says that because of their relationship that statement didn’t hurt her feelings, in reflection it became a reason for returning to Halifax so other students wouldn’t have to hear statements such as that.  

“When the opportunity came for me to come back home I did. It was because I didn't want other students to hear from people ‘I'm surprised but you can do what you do based on where you came from.’  One of the challenges in coming back home was that people first thought it had to be because of some scandal that made me give up a high-paying job to come back here and make about half or less than half of what I was making in IT.  That was before they realized that it could be that I just had an interest in giving back. Coming back was a challenge but then once people  saw that I was genuine in the work that I did in coming back home. With me just being engaged in the community that challenge went away. For me it was coming back and finding inside myself an appreciation for where I'm from.”

From IT to Elementary Principal: a Journey of a 1000 Miles 

Even though Dawn once declared a major in IT and engineering at UVa, now she’s living a mission to make sure that students in Halifax receive an excellent education and have opportunities that provide them with a range of choices after they graduate. She also sees herself as a role model for the children she serves and believes that her return to Halifax has been good for the community and her.  She deeply believes that the education children get shouldn’t limit their knowledge of the world,  including the one in which they are growing up. 

We first met Dawn with a group of elementary students at a homegrown Halifax County Schools Innovation Night for families. The superintendent had invited us to attend and share a few words about the importance of educational innovation. He had been worried that only a few parents and community members would show up. He shouldn’t have. The middle school cafeteria was standing room only that night. The schools had pulled out all the stops to share their innovation work with the community and Dawn was there with an exuberant team of elementary students demonstrating how ozobots worked as families and community members visited the share-fair  exhibits. We didn’t know her background at the time but her commitment to developing creative and critical thinking skills through opportunities for young learners to design, make, build, and engineer using their innate inventiveness caught our attention that night. 

The first time we watched Dawn working with teachers and young people she serves, we knew she was born to be an educator. Dawn had to figure that out for herself as she reminisced  with us, “I didn't think of myself as a teacher at first because I did go into IT. I worked in IT for several years. I always used to volunteer in a school when I was working in the city and the hours I spent in that school meant more to me than the travel and salary that I had…. It took me a long time to see that salary again once I made the shift to become a classroom teacher.” 

Halifax schools spend about $1500 less per pupil than the state average in a state that spends far less than the national per pupil average and ranks in the middle of the pack of states in per pupil expenses. When we walked classrooms in our visits to the two schools where Dawn has been a principal and observed the state of facilities aging out the capability to meet learning needs in this century, we appreciated even more her sense of efficacy. Though it’s a challenge to  work in rural America, Dawn values the chance to be a role model for any child. She sees her influence on young black girls as particularly impactful in helping them see possibilities in life they might not have considered otherwise. She gets emotional about her work and what has become her life passion. 

Dawn sets high standards for all the learners in her school but she isn’t cut from the cloth of educators who value kids passing state tests as a high bar for what they need to be successful in life. Instead, Dawn sees one’s capability to build relationships, to be worthy of trust, to solve problems, and to give back to the community as being as important as academic success to their future. She’s spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a community such as Halifax thrive. She sees the schools as critical to rebuilding the community either by attracting new people looking for the best of a small town environment or bringing former students back to rejoin the community as adults.

I think more are finding their way back

“I think some students are eager to get away from here. But, they have to know why they want to move away. Sometimes the ones who move away didn't truly have a purpose. They come back. Sometimes they come home and take advantage of the community college opportunities here. They may come back home and develop families. I think there are opportunities here depending on what their purpose is. Some of them at age 17 or18 truly don't know what their purpose is. I think more are finding ways to come back. More and more now are graduating and see a  purpose for coming back. It may not always mean they will live here but they're looking for opportunities to mentor and coach and give back to some of the students that come behind them.“ 

There’s been a resurgence among millennials who find their way back home or to small towns that offer a lifestyle that feels more intimate and comfortable. This is especially true for young families looking a genuine sense of community. Dawn understands that draw and has capitalized on knowing families in her work as a hometown educator. Her connectivity to families is a strength in her role as a principal. She doesn’t just know students and staff by name. She knows siblings and parents and friends. It means when she walks into local stores that she is known by name. There’s no anonymity for a small town educator but she sees that as an asset in her work.  

“When I meet students here, I know after a couple of questions such as what elementary school did you attend or who are some of your family members that we instantly have a connection because they will have someone in their family that I know unless they truly moved here. Just being able to develop those relationships and make those connections makes it easier, I believe,  makes it easier for them to trust me as a person. With children here everyone knows you know someone in their family.  That's a gift and a curse but I think it’s pretty helpful.” 

A rural community’s identity is shaped by its history. Halifax County bears the name of an English lord, something it has in common with a number of Virginia counties. It has been home to a former Virginia governor. It has played a role in Virginia’s tobacco economy. One little known historical fact has driven a call to action for education innovation in recent years. Dawn shared with us the story of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman,  who became the source of the most famous cell line in medical history according to Johns Hopkins Medical Center, This story has deep meaning for Dawn but like much of history as it is taught in America’s schools, she was never taught anything about this famous resident of Halifax. She sees this as a reason for black educators to actively engage with students and community as mentors. It is also, in Dawn Miller’s eyes, an opportunity to shape a curriculum for the future that engages the full story of a place, a community as it drives deeper learning.