Episode 7 – Dr. Martirano’s Final Episode

Transcript

Narrator: Welcome to the Inside HCPSS podcast, a podcast produced by the Howard County Public School System.

Today’s episode is a special one as we bring you a brief message in-between Season One and Season Two of Inside HCPSS.

On November 17, Dr. Martirano announced his decision to retire as HCPSS Superintendent. Before his final day, he wanted to share a heartfelt message to the HCPSS community.

Dr. Martirano…

Dr. Martirano: Greetings, greetings, greetings. This is Dr. Martirano, Superintendent of Schools for the Howard County Public School System. I bring great greetings to the members of our school system community, and to all of our members of our great county, a county of which I have lived in for a total of 25 years. My wife and I moved to the county, and raised our children here, and it is a county which I absolutely love and adore. And having had the opportunity to lead as the superintendent of schools has been quite an honor, considering, for instance, since 1900, there has only been eight superintendents in the Howard County Public School System. And I view it as a major privilege and honor to be able to lead and serve the children of our community for the last seven years.

And so I am in a very reflective mood right now. This is my last podcast officially as superintendent of the Howard County Public School System. Many of you know that last month I announced my retirement, after seven years as superintendent in Howard County, three as the state superintendent in West Virginia, and nine as a superintendent in St. Mary’s County, a total of 19 years, and as an educator for close to 40. I have announced my retirement effective January the 10th as I move on to the next journey of my life. And it has been an absolute amazing journey in terms of my career as an educator, with great opportunities working with our children.

Many of you know me well, and I have had the opportunity to serve as a science teacher at the middle school level in Prince George’s County, I was a principal at the elementary level in Prince George’s County, I was an assistant principal at the middle school level in Prince George’s County, and a high school principal as well, the principal of Laurel High for a period of time, and then also worked in Montgomery as a principal. And so I have a great foundational set of experiences and knowledge in terms of schools, and absolutely believe that the victories for our children occur within our classrooms and our schools every day. And my whole tenet of leadership has been predicated on supporting our classrooms and supporting our teachers who support our children, and making certain that we do everything that we can between that interaction where a child and a teacher comes together to preserve that, and to enhance that through our work as leaders within the school system and within our community. And so I’m very proud of the work and the career of which I have been able to be part of, and quite frankly, very privileged and honored.

As I come to the end of this segment of my career, I am in a very reflective mode about the work in general, and as I thought about how I would say farewell to the community, I wanted to keep my focus regarding our children and our students, and why I get up every day to do the work of which I do with boundless energy and enthusiasm to support our most vulnerable children. And many of you know my story where, you know, I’m a child that grew up in the mountains of Western Maryland, and my mother passed away when I was 10, and I was, through some circumstances, was placed in foster care, and grew up in poverty, and understand those kind of experiences that can be quite traumatic for young people. And lifting up the voices of our most vulnerable students, lifting up the conversations, and providing voice to the students who need the most support is what work I have been most proud of during my entire career.

No matter where I’ve been, I’ve worked very hard to support our young people who need the additional supports, and take all of our students to the highest levels where they need to be. Our definition of equity is meeting our students across the board, meeting all of our students where they are, and taking them to places where they aspire to be, and I’m very, very proud of the advancement of that agenda, and the philosophy in Howard County.

Many of you also know that my motto is in order to teach a child well, you must know a child well, and through those interactions of understanding the experiences of children, if a child comes to school hungry, or if a child can’t see and they need eyeglasses, or if their shoes aren’t fitting properly, or they need socks, or if they have traumatic events occurring, we can’t turn a blind eye to those experiences because it is the understanding of a child, those experiences that we respond to from a very social-emotional well-being level that provides the level of support that our students need so that academic achievement can occur at the highest level. And so I’m extremely, as I’ve stated several times, extremely reflective at this moment about the work, and the work we’ve done in Howard County, I thought I would reflect a little bit on my experiences with our young people, lifting up the voices of our students.

I am a strong advocate of lifting up student voice in general, and through that I have spent numerous hours and days and time all across our district setting a goal every year to visit every school within our county, 78, and that’s quite an incredible Herculean task to be able to do that. And then spending quality time with our teachers and our students within their classrooms has provided, one, great joy for me, that as an individual who is dictated by joy in general, and looking for the positive in everything that we do, and bringing joy to those around me, by spending time with our students keeps me reality-based as far as the work that happens in our classroom every day, and then guides the decisions that I make in our school system for the betterment of our young people.

And so those interactions have been extremely powerful for me. Those who know me, again as I refer to it, is I don’t need an entourage as I come into our schools, I don’t need a number of people around me, I’m very comfortable in schools. In fact, sometimes I come in with my ID, and come in the back door, the side door, and just emerge and interact with our kids and our students and our teachers at such a wonderful level, and you get this real sense of the granular, actual work that is happening when you’re interacting in classrooms. And ultimately, we need to keep that vision in front of us as we’re making decisions on behalf of our children, and also, you know, never taking ourselves too seriously, and finding that time to listen to the voices of children. And so I thought I’d spend a little bit of time reflecting on some of these most memorable stories that I’ve had these opportunities with our beautiful students within our school system.

And so I’m reminded most recently, last year I spent some time visiting one of our schools, Thunder Hill Elementary School, and a beautiful teacher there who had been teaching a number of years, Carol McGinnis, and her 1st grade class. And I went into the classroom, and the children were just enthusiastic about learning, and they were sounding out words, and they were breaking the code of reading. And one of their exercises that they worked with, activities that they did with their teacher was taking the names of each other, and then taking those names and breaking the letters down, and so for example if the last name was Smith, they’d take those five letters, and then come up with as many words as they could with the combination of those letters, and then the teacher would challenge them, and you saw this wonderful learning.

And so as I was leaving, and seeing such enthusiasm for learning, the teacher suggested, why don’t we use Dr. Martirano’s name, and use that as a way to sound out words and make words, and we’ll report back. So I left, and had reflected on the interaction, but a few weeks later I received this wonderful letter. And if you’ve ever received a letter from, you know, a classroom of children, or children in general, beautiful printing, and it was so well done, written on that beautiful handwriting paper. And basically it said that they wanted to let me know that they won, they had beat their teacher, they had come up with 31 words, and that they stated that if I put an S on my name, that they would have been able to come up with a lot more names, a lot more words. And they said, “We’ve redefined your name to Dr. Smartirano,” and I about just fell out with laughter.

Because it was early in the morning, it was in anticipation of a very challenging day, and it just brought it back to a sense of the importance of our work. And they went on to further have great compliments for smartness and a variety of other things, and I said why didn’t I come up with that name sooner? Because those who know, I get so many versions of my name, from Dr. Maraschino, Dr. Marshmallow, Doctor…everything that can come up with except saying my name properly, and it’s been reduced to Dr. M. But the students, I am forever indebted to the students at Thunder Hill for calling me Dr. Smartirano. And as the case was, I insisted on interacting with them afterwards, and we had a Zoom meeting, and I was able to go into their classroom and speak with their teacher, and as would be the case, I’ve got a picture of it in my desk of all the students. I think there were like 20 students in the classroom, and they all tried to cram their faces into the screen, and seeing their beautiful faces is just so motivating, and so also very humorous. But the truthfulness always comes from our students, and I was just so pleased with that interaction, and again, another dictating way.

As I’m thinking also about, you know, some of the other students that I’ve interacted with, and these are things that will linger with me the rest of my life, I remember visiting a student over at Gorman Crossing Elementary. And it was announced that I was visiting, and I always come into the school and I’ll make an announcement on the PA system, and let the students know that I’m there. And I said, “I can’t visit all the classrooms, but if you see me, you know, wave,” and it creates a real sense of energy and interactions within the school. And a little boy in a kindergarten class has an outstanding teacher, his name was Mohammed, and he was told that I was coming.

And unfortunately that day I was running late, but I was still able to make my commitment to our students in terms of arriving, and when I walked in, his teacher was so concerned because he was counting on seeing me. And I kneeled down on the floor with him, and got to the level of which he was and he grabbed me by the head, literally grabbed my head, pulled me in and his mouth was up against my ears, and he said, “I’ve been waiting for you all day.” And he just wanted to talk to me, and tell me about how his experience was in his classroom. And it just absolutely was a very emotional interaction because this wonderful child was expressing his needs, and telling me in his words about his educational experience, and I’ll never forget that moment.

And I’ve had some very humorous interactions, obviously, with our students as well, and these are, again, these are the things, as we listen to the voices of our children, we always have to listen to their voices. We always have to listen. So if you don’t have that ability, train yourself to do so. Our children speak the truth, and we have to listen to them as we’re making decisions. And I insist on it all through my leadership, with working with staff, listen to our children. Remember, in order to teach a child well, you must know that child well.

And so I think of another one, where I walked into a school, and it was a gloomy day, a gloomy, gloomy day, and a quintessential, you know, cloudy Maryland day, and I was bound and determined to bring some joy to the world, and I found the brightest pink tie that I had in my tie collection, and I wore it into this school. And this beautiful child who had a pink dress on, she stated that…she immediately identified with my pink tie, and she was in the cafeteria, and she came over and she goes, “You’ve got a pink tie on, and I’ve got a pink dress,” and I said, “I’ve got a pink tie, you’ve got a pink dress,” and it turned into this beautiful interaction with her singing back and forth about her pink dress and my pink tie. And I was feeling very joyful, but as I turned around, but only as children can do, she turned to her teacher and she said, “Who was that old man with the pink tie on,” and just made me laugh at the level. But again, listening to the voices of our students is what I take away.

And so as I wrap up my experience of being a humble servant for our students in terms of my leadership, never losing sight of what is most important. Keeping our children in the forefront of our decision-making is absolutely critical. My heart is filled with gratitude. My heart is filled with love. My heart is filled with compassion as I think about the journey of the young people in our school system, who every day it is a struggle for them to continue to…who need the support. And as I think back, the gratitude and the love and the support for all of our students, my heart is full, and I am just forever grateful. I am a better man and a better person for having had the opportunity to lead the Howard County Public School System.

And it is with, again, great gratitude that I express with sincerity, and true emotion and authenticity what an honor and a privilege it has been to serve as a leader of the Howard County Public School System. And I wish nothing but goodness for everyone in the future, and I will look back with such pride, knowing that together, as community, that we will continue to support all of our young people in their continued future endeavors. And so from a very humble beginnings of myself, coming to the position of superintendent, and being able to effectuate such great support and change for our students has been extremely humbling. And I leave my position with such pride and satisfaction, knowing that our school system is in such a good place to meet the needs of all of our students, and for that, I thank you.

To members of our community, once again to our school system, to all of our teachers, to all of our staff, and to all of our beautiful students, continue to make Dr. Martirano proud every day by doing just great work, and doing what is necessary for our students. And for that, I sign off to my final podcast, and say thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate the honor and the privilege to lead. Have a wonderful, wonderful journey. Thank you.

Narrator: And thank you for joining us and listening to this podcast episode.

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Talk to you soon.