C.D. Hylton High School Principal Is a Finalist for National Honor

Many school principals evoke the idea of treating their students and staff like family, but Carolyn M. Custard, principal of C.D. Hylton High School, clings to that concept with a sense of duty.

She takes out for lunch not only the straight-A students, but also the strugglers who show massive improvements. She sends out weekly "Custard's Chat Time" newsletters to her staff, listing healthy foods teachers should eat.

And last week, Custard visited the home of a student whose sibling had been killed in a car accident.

It's that level of devotion that seems to pay off for Custard, 51, who grew up in North Carolina. Last month, the National Association of Secondary School Principals named her one of six finalists for national principal of the year. It's the second time a Prince William County educator has made it that far in the competition. In 2004, Deputy Superintendent Rae Darlington, then a middle school principal, earned the distinction.

Winners will be announced in September and will receive a $3,500 grant, according to the Reston-based association's Web site.

"The thing I want people to understand is that I am very excited and I am honored and I am humbled," Custard said in an interview. "But the thing is, I could not be the leader I am if I did not have the support and dedication and commitment of my staff, students and parents."

Based on its scores on the SAT and Virginia Standards of Learning exams, Hylton performs in the middle of the county's pack of 10 high schools. The school has a comparatively high percentage of economically disadvantaged students, about 20 percent, and routinely meets state and federal No Child Left Behind goals. One of Hylton's chief achievements is how much SOL scores improved from 2006 to 2007 among special education students. For example, the percentage of students with disabilities who passed the exam rose 80 percent in 2007, compared with 59 percent in 2006, according to state data.

"We did a lot of 'mainstreaming' special education students into our regular classes and we did a lot of co-teaching," she said. "It's not just the special education teacher working with special education students. It's both that teacher and the general education teacher working with all the students," she said.

Custard said that improvements are essential. On state math and reading exams, Hylton students are raising their scores, but not as much as those in schools with similar demographics, such as Woodbridge and Stonewall Jackson high schools.

The school's average SAT score, 1470 out of a possible 2400, fell 28 points from the previous year. The score nudged Hylton one notch up in the county's SAT rankings, to sixth place from seventh, but only because Woodbridge's SAT score dropped 63 points.

New SAT and SOL scores are due later this summer or in early fall.

"We're looking forward to receiving our new SAT scores," Custard said. "We did a lot of SAT tutoring and prep on the weekends this past year."

Ever since she was a child in Fayetteville, N.C., Custard said, she knew how she felt about teaching. Her parents taught at local elementary schools, and Custard said when she would play with her young siblings, she would be the teacher.

"I remember my parents buying me a little chalkboard for Christmas," she said. "When my parents said, 'Go to your room,' I would say to my younger brothers, 'Let's play a game of 'school' and I'll play 'teacher.' "

She graduated from Winston-Salem State University with a degree in intermediate education and earned graduate degrees in guidance counseling and administration. She taught at a U.S. military base in Japan with her husband, now a retired Army sergeant major, before arriving in the Washington area in 2000, when she became an assistant principal at Prince William's Forest Park High School.

When the principal's job at Hylton opened, Custard applied and was accepted. She said she felt nervous as she started in fall 2003. "I really wanted to establish a team effort among teachers . . . to create a positive and welcoming school culture," she said.

She required teachers to collaborate more and, she said, her school's success is rooted in its high morale.

This month, Custard will give a 10-minute presentation before face a panel of judges for the principal of the year award. "I am going to talk about what we have done, how we have raised achievement," she said. "It's not about Carolyn Custard. I am going to focus on Hylton high school."