By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Melissa Pender did not originally plan to go into education, her plan was to be an accountant, but while in college she took a part-time job at a Beaufort daycare and she fell in love with working with kids and decided to change her major to education.
Pender, who is the Principal at Coosa Elementary School and was recently named this year’s Beaufort County School District (BCSD) Principal of the Year, is originally from Augusta, Ga., but she has lived in Beaufort for longer than 40 years after she moved here with her family after her stepfather was stationed here.
She got her undergraduate degree in early childhood education from the University of South Carolina Beaufort before going on to get two master’s degrees, one from the University of South Carolina in administration and one from Lesley University in education and the integration of technology.
Pender graduated in 1997 and got her first job teaching at Beaufort Elementary School. She then moved on to teach first grade at Davis Elementary School the following year.
In 1999, Pender was hired and began teaching at Coosa Elementary School as a second- and third-grade multi-age teacher.
“In Beaufort County, I have taught – with the exception of fourth grade – PreK all the way through fifth grade as a classroom teacher,” said Pender. “I also taught computer lab for seven years, too. So I consistently have asked, every few years, if I could move to the next grade because if you can teach the grade above and the grade below and all the way down you can see what a child needs to learn from the beginning stages all the way until they are leaving elementary school, I feel like that is important for my professional growth. Especially in this position, it would be very difficult to tell someone, ‘You can do this,’ when you have never done it yourself.”
Pender has been serving as principal of Coosa Elementary School for six years and was an assistant principal for two years before that.
In her fifth year as principal, Coosa received the prestigious National Blue Ribbon award which she attributes to the hard work and dedication of the students, faculty and staff at the school.
Collaboration and respect are two of the most important things for her as a principal, she said they are essential when you are working as a team.
“You’ve got to walk alongside the teachers if you want to grow with them and have them grow with you,” said Pender.
Another essential part of the job that she emphasizes is having systems in place to ensure success for all students, faculty and staff – if a system does not work, they get rid of it and replace it with something else.
“Systems are a necessary component when you are doing any kind of well-designed plan for change in any organization or in education,” Pender said.
Most importantly, Pender believes that all children can learn, but the path they take varies by the individual.
“The students are the reason I get up and come to work every day and the faculty and staff are the icing on the cake,” Pender said about her love of her job. “You can never have a bad day when you walk into a building and you get to spend the first 30 minutes opening a car door, I get to go by and greet every classroom every morning and I get to see the kids in the hallway. Just the number of kids that I get to see in the morning, you can’t have a bad day when you start your day with 30 minutes of talking to kids.”
Pender said that while she is not sure exactly what the future holds for her, she is certain that whatever it is will involve education.
While she has no plans to leave Coosa, she hopes that if she ever does, the legacy she leaves behind is one where learning at Coosa is exciting and that all students, educators and staff at the school feel like they are part of a family.
“I just hope they say that I’ve left some sort of mark on the community,” said Pender.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
