In the fall, Alexandria City, Virginia, Public Schools Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt spoke to a sixth-grade girl and her mom during an event.
The student, who Kay-Wyatt said attends Francis C. Hammond Middle School, looked at her, pointing out that she had hair similar to Kay-Wyatt’s. It was clear to Kay-Wyatt, who was interim superintendent at the time, how proud she was that a Black woman was leading the school district.
Last week, the school system selected Kay-Wyatt to be the permanent superintendent, after a year as the interim head of the city’s schools. That prompted the student’s mom to send Kay-Wyatt an email.
The note was “congratulating me and just again saying, ‘My daughter says you look like her in this role, and not many students get to see that,'” Kay-Wyatt said.
She is the city’s first Black female superintendent, and is taking over at a time when many teachers are leaving the profession, students are catching up in the aftermath of the pandemic and there’s a rise in middle and high school students abusing drugs. Kay-Wyatt was appointed the interim superintendent after Gregory C. Hutchings Jr. resigned last year. The interim title will be removed when her new contract starts July 1.
Regardless of her title, Kay-Wyatt said, she still feels the same sense of fulfillment every time she walks into a school building and is speaking to children. She knows she’s inspiring many of them, too.
Community members have said, “‘You make us proud. I can’t believe it. We are here to support you.’ But really just that they did not expect to see a Black woman sitting in this role,” Kay-Wyatt said.
Kay-Wyatt was a business major and aspired to be a nonprofit lawyer. But eventually, she decided to go back to school, got a master’s degree in special education and became a special-education teacher.
Now, after a year at the helm, Kay-Wyatt is working to address many of the same challenges facing other D.C.-area school systems. Teachers are leaving the profession, she said, and the number of students attending school to become teachers is getting smaller. That’s required Alexandria to find creative ways to support staff wellness, including finding ways to build a culture where educators feel appreciated.
“I have some transition priorities that I want to focus on, of making sure we build a culture and really changing that school experience, because it hasn’t been so great for our students or our families over the years,” Kay-Wyatt said.
This year, the city has focused on 30 minutes of social-emotional learning lessons, which use things like community circles to reinforce positive behavior interventions and supports. It’s also working to help students catch up in the aftermath of the pandemic, something Kay-Wyatt said will take some time to “get back to really making sure that all of our students are really where they need to be performing academically.”
Alexandria is also grappling with a rise in substance abuse, something Kay-Wyatt detailed in an October video message to the community. The city has held three substance abuse information sessions, and has a few more scheduled.
At the start of the school year, the city unveiled a series of security enhancements, including requiring middle and high schoolers to carry student IDs. The city has been tracking the effectiveness of some of those steps, Kay-Wyatt said, and is launching a weapons abatement system that will roll out in the coming days. Prince William County recently took a similar step.
Kay-Wyatt is also hoping to address a rise in students who miss 10% or more of the school year, something she said can be improved by explaining “the importance to the families of why it’s important to be in school and to be in school on time.”
Given those priorities, Kay-Wyatt isn’t spending much time decorating her office now that she knows she’ll be remaining in it.
“I’m not a decorator,” Kay-Wyatt said. “The only thing I have in my office is a lot of work.”
