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Overcast Saying goodbye to Carol Burris
When she started her career in education years ago, Dr. Carol Burris never expected that she’d wind up principal of South Side High School, nor that she would stay in the position for 15 years.
But a little bit more than a decade after she became a Spanish teacher at Lawrence High School, Burris was in charge of South Side and helping to transform it into the nationally recognized school that it is today.
“I think she has successfully integrated two extremely important themes of how we support our instructional program, which is combining the concepts of equity and excellence,” said Dr. William Johnson, the district’s superintendent. “I know it’s been her mission in life to be try to achieve in both areas, and she’s done both extremely well.”
Since she started as principal of South Side, Burris has worked to remove tracking — the system where students of similar academic ability attend classes together — and make the more challenging classes in the school, like the International Baccalaureate classes, available to all students.
Burris’s original college degree was in computer science. She was home caring for her daughters after college, and became a member of the Board of Education in her home town of East Rockaway. It was there that she started to realize what her true calling was.
“As I sat as a school board member, I started to say, ‘I don’t want to just give my opinion about things, I want to be in the trenches and make a difference,’” Burris said. “I felt by teaching I would make a bigger difference than by being a computer programmer.”
During her decade as a school board member, Burris had been continuing her education at Hofstra University. A Spanish professor there encouraged her to pursue her goal.
“He said, ‘continue with this. Become a Spanish teacher,’” Burris recounted. “That’s what I did. I got a masters in Spanish Education at Long Island University and I started teaching.”
Burris started her career teaching Spanish at Lawrence High School. After seven-and-a-half years there, she took a position as assistant principal at South Side. Then, three years later, on July 1, 2000, Burris became principal.
