On the corner of School Ave and 5th Street a small playground rests on a sandy pit dusted with footprints of different shapes and sizes. Each day a surfeit of students stomp over the play equipment during their fifteen minute recess. In an office close by this playground, Principal Harriet Taylor is hard at work as she reaches the final stride in her career as an administrator at Springfield Elementary School. In June when the kids abandon the playground for summer, Harriet will abandon the office, relinquishing her duties as principal for the lure of retirement. Before Harriet could even dream of the office she works in today, she was romping all over the same playground many Springfield students use today. Harriet Taylor’s family moved to Bay County when she was eight years old and Harriet began third grade at none other than Springfield Elementary School. “It’s kind of cool that I got to start here and now I’m ending here.” she says with a proud smile, a Springfield tiger through and through. At Springfield, Harriet found her love for school. She describes her family as “abusive and very poor.” For her, the school became a break from her tumultuous home life, a place where she saw adults who lived their …show more content…
In the fourth grade at what was then Millville, Harriet encountered a teacher who she describes as “mean spirited.” During this same year, Harriet’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. As a fourth grader, Harriet would spend her lunch breaks running the two-mile trek from Millville to her home so that she could care for her Mother while her Father worked. “If I wasn’t on the front steps of the school and in line with my class by the time lunch ended, she would consider me late,” Harriet said, grinning at the childhood memory, “most of the time the other kids would hold the line for me trying to