A Visit with Principal Cindy Taylor

Celebrating 3 years with Santa Maria I.S.D

Cindy Taylor is an educational professional who is celebrating her third year in the Santa Maria Independent School District. This dedicated educator brings her 15 years of experience as teacher, counselor, and administrator to her office. She enthusiastically carries out her duties as the School Principal of both the Middle and High Schools in Santa Maria. Her firm belief is that anyone can be successful at reaching their goals with “hard work and determination.”

“What we strive to do in the Santa Maria school district is to make sure that our students will be college-ready, career-ready, and life-ready,” she told La Feria News, adding, “one of the reasons is that I care for the students who come to our schools–I support them, and I endeavor to imbue that feeling into our teachers and staff.”

Taylor recalled a remark made by one of her professors that made an indelible impression on her. “I carried his words with me during my early teaching career when I was a classroom teacher, and am still influenced by it. “The professor said simply, ‘If you think that this is the worst possible day of your life, there is always someone, somewhere who is going through much worse–learn to walk in other people’s shoes.”

“I concluded that my job as school administrator would be to help my students to learn to cope with the challenges that life presents,” she said. “Everyone has obstacles that they encounter along the way. The difference will be on how you deal with that obstacles and life in general.”

To that end, Principal Taylor stresses four core values that the students and their teachers endeavor to follow: The first is the challenge to learn leadership, for it takes a leader to make a difference. Second is the respect you must show to others–that would include teachers, fellow-students, parents, police, and all representatives of authority.. Value number three is probably the hardest–self-discipline. Do things to bring credit to yourself, to your family and to your school–it is a daily choice. And finally, number four, is pride in yourself and your community.”

“Parents play an important part in the motivation and success of each student,” she said.

The parents are kept up-to-speed on the activities, goals and expectation of their children by our system of a ‘report card pickup every six weeks. In practice, every six weeks the parents are invited to meet with the teachers and administrators to talk about their child’s progress, and are given an assessment report–this has really been helpful.

Santa Maria has a very strong program to protect the students from bullying and abuse in the classrooms. Taylor said “Safety is first in the Santa Maria School District.”

“For that purpose,” she added, “we have a Blue Day every Tuesday to fight against verbal or physical bullying of any sort. The nationwide Blue Day was started in 1989 as an awareness campaign against child abuse by a concerned grandmother, whose beloved granddaughter was the victim of terrible abuse in school. We, likewise, want our students safe and able to study without abuse.”

This energetic administrator has been able to get all this done while raising five kids (four girls and one boy ranging in age from three to twenty-four years.).

About the future, she said that “I want to be an advocate and voice for my students, and see that my system is in place so that the things we are doing become the norm here at Santa Maria Independent School District.”

And finally, she ended our visit with this: “We are a small school system with a big heart that teaches our students to strive for excellence–not perfection, mind you, but excellence in all they do.“