 Shea Staskowski/SDN Stone talks with Starkville School District Board of Trustees members Keith Coble, left, and Eddie Myles after Tuesday night’s board meeting, during which Supt. Judy Couey recommended Stone be hired as Armstrong Middle School principal. The board unanimously approved Stone’s hiring. Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series of stories profiling the newly hired principals of Armstrong Middle School and Starkville High School.
By SHEA STASKOWSKI
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Joseph Stone, the newly-hired Armstrong Middle School principal, once had dreams of living in New York, driving a BMW convertible and being one of that city’s successful lawyers, but now he calls himself privileged to be apart of the Starkville School District.
Born and raised in Aberdeen, Stone was a 1992 graduate of Aberdeen High School, where he played football and basketball and was voted “mostly likely to succeed.” He even received a scholarship to Itawamba Community College to play football, but decided to pursue an English degree at Rust College in Holly Springs, to fulfill his dreams of becoming a lawyer.
Luckily for the SSD, during his junior year of college, Stone was tutoring high school students in English and fell in love with teaching.
“I fell in love with the atmosphere and decided I wanted to be in education,” Stone explained. Being a junior, Stone opted to finish college as an English major and did research to find an alternate route for his teacher certification. He was able to find that route and took the National Teachers Exam as well as an English competency exam.
But Stone didn’t wait till graduation to immerse himself in the Holly Springs School District. He became a second grade assistant teacher and even drove a bus route for the school.
Fresh out of college, Stone moved to Canton were he was employed as a sixth grade assistant teacher at Nichols Middle School. After a few months, he was hired to teach sixth and seventh grade fine arts there. After that, he began teaching English at Coldwater High School in Tate County and was the assistant football and basketball coach.
Then Stone moved to Atlanta to obtain his master of divinity degree, as he is a minister.
“To answer my call to the ministry, I decided to I wanted to get some education in that area,” Stone said.
Though he did not receive the degree, he did become the aquatics coordinator at the YMCA in Atlanta and taught lifeguard certification classes. After living in Atlanta for three years, Stone returned to Mississippi and married his wife of five years, Laleta, and the two have a daughter, Precious, who is 4 years old.
Stone then returned to teaching and coaching in Halifax County, Va., but he started to yearn for more and decided to leave and return to Mississippi once again.
“I knew once leaving Halifax, the classrooms started to close in on me and I knew I wanted to one day become a principal, so I began work to get my master’s,” Stone explained.
Armed with his master’ degree in educational leadership, Stone began his career in the SSD and was hired as the assistant principal at Starkville High School.
Then the position as director of Quad County Alternative school became available. After two years leading Quad, he was presented with another opportunity to use his talents as an administrator as the principal of Armstrong.
“I felt that I could have a wider impact on students,” Stone said.
At Quad, Stone deals with a group of students who are classified as “at risk,” and said he wanted to use this new position as a way to keep students out of Quad in the first place.
“I wanted to get into an atmosphere where I can hopefully curb students from coming to Quad by being there in the regular school setting,” he said of his decision to apply for the principal position at AMS.
Though he misses teaching, Stone believes his gift of recognizing people’s talents makes him a good administrator. By being able to identify people’s strengths and weaknesses, Stone feels that he will be able to assist his teachers in being effective in the classroom.
“I think I bring a certain passion to the table in wanting all kids to succeed — and really making all mean all,” Stone said.
But with any new job, Stone will focus his attention at first on getting to know his new staff, he said.
“I want to learn the staff and allow them to learn me,” he explained. “I want to assure them that I’m there for the well being of the children —number one — and secondly to be there to support them.”
Stone admitted that he is a little anxious to get into his new surroundings, but looks forward to getting his hands wet, he said. One thing that he is not apprehensive about is the staff that he will soon inherit.
“We have some very creative and innovative teachers, so I really want to tap into what they are already doing,” he said.
Over the next month and a half, Stone will spend time researching the schedules and routines of Armstrong to familiarize himself with the atmosphere of the school. He plans to spend most of his time observing and learning to hopefully expand on the successful aspects of the school, as well as altering things that might not be as effective, he said.
Stone said that his secret for success at Armstrong will be his passion.
“I believe that anyone that goes into public education first of all has to have a genuine love for children,” he said.
Stone said he will use that passion to tap into the faculty’s passion for teaching to help make Armstrong a better school for the future.
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