inside nhcs November 4, 2022

If you’re an adult and you meet Castle Hayne Elementary Principal Christianne May, you might pick up that she’s all business.

She doesn’t sweet talk or sugarcoat.

She really doesn’t want to be the center of attention.

And she doesn’t want a minute of time in the school building — whether it’s hers, her staff’s, or her students’.

It’s partly how she steered Castle Hayne from not meeting growth by state standards two years ago to exceeding it this year, all during a pandemic that has triggered learning loss for students across the state.

“We put kids first,” she said simply, when asked to explain that success.

“This is a hardworking staff and our focus is on instruction, making sure that we’re teaching the standards and that when students are sitting in our rooms we’re capitalizing on every opportunity to teach.”

If you’re a student in her building, however, you’ll know at your core that putting kids first means the whole kid — not just their test scores.

You might be the tiny kindergartener in the hall with his aides, who doesn’t verbalize anything but runs to embrace a crouching Ms. May.

Or the young students and their dad that Ms. May and her social work and counseling team rallied behind after their mom died of Covid.

Or the fifth grader she stops in the hall to take by the shoulders and tell, with quiet intensity, “I’m happy you’re here today. Look at my face. This is where you belong. We want you here every day.”

Tears well in the student’s eyes as he struggles to meet her gaze.

“What are you going to do if you feel sad?” she asks.

“Come to you?”

“Come to me.”

The last few years have shown how the diverse, Title I school serving the sprawling northern swath of the county is meeting every need of its families — academic, social, emotional, physical.

“There is such a heavy weight for everybody in our school,” she said. “I think it’s my job to be responsive to everybody’s emotional needs — the adults and the students.”

For her staff, May comes up with fun team building activities that unite teachers from across the building and help fight fatigue on the darkest days.

“When all of the adults are working toward the same goal,” she said, “that changes everything.”

And for students, she keeps expectations high while making sure they always know they’re loved no matter their struggles, and welcome no matter their backgrounds.

Looking over a behavior chart with an upper-grade student, she asks how the day has gone. There were some rough patches, the girl says, “and now I’m an island,” gesturing to her desk being pushed over near the teacher’s.

“You should get a palm tree. Islands have palm trees,” May says, drawing a sly smile from the girl. “I’ve got a pineapple in my room, I’ll bring it in for you. You can put it right here. An island trophy.”

The girl says she wants to turn the day around. That’s exactly the attitude that will move her forward, her principal says.

Now in her 20th year in education, May says she’s a leader that would prefer to be behind the scenes, finding purpose in the things that might not make it on a banner — helping a teacher through a tough time, or making one student feel seen or get connected with the services they need.

“Everything we do impacts somebody in some way. I feel very strongly about kids receiving a certain quality of education because it’s their lifeline,” she said. “My responsibility is to provide the staff the tools, resources and conditions to make that happen.”