Reflecting on Mrs. Armstrong’s Journey as Middle Learning’s Principal
With the recent news of Mrs. Armstrong, the current Middle Learning Principal, transitioning to her new role as Galloway’s Director of Athletics, I wanted to reflect on Mrs. Armstrong’s experience as a woman in leadership and what the journey has been like for her.
Mrs. Armstrong has been the Middle Learning Principal for eleven years and has helped shape the Galloway community with her kindness, strength, and dedication. Similarly to her upcoming role as Director of Athletics, she recognizes that the role of a principal tends to be very male-dominated. As a woman in a leadership role, she “appreciate[s] that Galloway’s leadership team has been pretty balanced over the years,” because she believes it “is very valuable and important…that all voices from different experiences and backgrounds can be heard.”
For Mrs. Armstrong, it took an abundance of work for her to get to the position she is currently in. Originally, when Mrs. Armstrong came to Galloway, she was a Middle Learning teacher, so she fostered quite a few friendships with other teachers and her co-workers along the way. However, once she became principal, she had to “sacrifice” those friendships because she “couldn’t have the same kind of relationship with them.” Additionally, she had to step back from a role she loved – coaching – since being principal demanded too much time to be able to do both.
Although Mrs. Armstrong is aware that the position she is in is usually taken up by men, she doesn’t think that it’s harder for women to be in leadership positions- at least not at Galloway. At other schools, she thinks that it is tougher; she told me about an experience when she saw a clear difference between how men and women are treated first-hand. “I was at a hiring fair once representing Galloway with a male Galloway employee and many of the candidates approached our table and introduced themselves and spoke with the male first. It happened enough times that even the male commented to me about it,” she explained. However, at Galloway, Mrs. Armstrong says that she has “always felt valued, respected, and heard within our community,” and that “Galloway’s leadership team has had a decent balance of men and women, so [she] never felt like [she] was the minority in terms of being a female.” This being said, she still has to remind herself that “[her] voice and ideas matter and can feed a conversation.”
As successful as she is, Mrs. Armstrong can’t help but think back to her younger self, who never would have imagined that she would one day be a principal. She says, “Galloway helped me to grow in confidence and supported me in my leadership journey,” and that her dream (which she is already seeing come true) is that Galloway “is doing the same thing for its students” by “helping them to see that their voice matters and how it can be used to bring change,” especially because she did not receive this support when she was in school.
Throughout Mrs. Armstrong’s career as a principal, she has learned a lot of life lessons. The one thing she would advise to women aspiring to be in leadership positions is that “every hard conversation, bump, or conflict is actually a gift,” and that those moments “will help make them a more competent and confident leader.” She’d also recommend that they “find a mentor who they can lean on throughout their journey.”
As Mrs. Armstrong transitions from being Middle Learning’s principal, both the women and men in the Galloway community recognize Mrs. Armstrong for her incredible leadership and the impact she’s left on the entirety of Galloway. As the school year comes to a close, the Galloway community sends Mrs. Armstrong lots of love and wishes her well on her new journey as the Director of Athletics. We are excited to see the wonderful things she will do in this new role.
By Marin Zocca