For Cheryl Carter, it was like coming home. The familiar halls welcomed her back, and the reunion with teachers and students just felt right. She returned to Will Rogers to continue what she had started. As a member of the transitional team two years earlier, the Tulsa native and product of the Tulsa Public School system served as assistant principal of Will Rogers College and Junior High School in 2011-2012. After one year at Will Rogers, Carter was named principal of TRAICE Academy (Tulsa Resource and Adolescent Intervention Centers of Excellence), a satellite program that replaced in-school suspension programs at every middle and high school in the Tulsa district. When Stacey Vernon was promoted to the newly-created position of Instructional Leadership Director for TPS, Carter was asked to return to Will Rogers as its principal. “I am excited that Cheryl Carter will be taking over as principal at Will Rogers,” Vernon said. “She is an experienced administrator who was an integral part of the transformation into Will Rogers College High. She is familiar with the vision and mission of the school, and I have the highest confidence in her ability to take over as principal.” The admiration is mutual. Carter is pleased that Vernon will remain closely tied to Will Rogers as the school continues to evolve. “It was a privilege to serve on the transitional team with Ms. Stacey Vernon. The first year was clearly a time of merging expectations on varying levels – from the students, parents, staff and the local community. It was, and still remains, a time for examining and expanding both possibilities and probabilities for students. As with all transitions, adjustments have to be made that don’t negatively impact the integrity of the program,” she said. After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, Carter received her B.A. in education from Langston University and her master’s degree in community counseling from Oklahoma State University and has post-graduate hours in education administration. She began her career with Tulsa Public Schools in 1977. Pursuing a life in education seemed inevitable; it’s in her DNA. Her maternal grandparents were teachers, her mother and father taught, both of her siblings teach at the college level, and her son is carrying on the family tradition as a teacher in Texas. Like her predecessor, the new principal has great expectations for the students of Will Rogers College High. “I have a fundamental belief that enhancing an individual’s ability to think critically will have a positive impact on his/her ability to function. Education, in my opinion, is one of the most important institutions of society. It is necessary in order to understand the world – large and small, near and far.”
Tracy Kouns courtesy Tulsa Public Schools
Welcome Home, Mrs. Carter
“Will Rogers College High School has emerged from a rich tradition of enhancing the development of young people. It is my desire and affirmation that this institution will remain relevant to the development of critical thinking skills of our populace in this millennium,” Carter said. “My dream is that these young people will accept the challenge to do the necessary work to move on to the next plateau in their growth, with the courage to face the fear of failure, while recognizing that their growth facilitates a ripple effect that includes not only themselves and their families, but also their educators and the community at large,” she continued. Furthermore, Carter said she hopes that the students will be inspired to reach back and help someone else coming up behind them. Seventy-five years later, the rich Roper tradition is riding on. - by Jan Davies Weinheimer Class of ‘66
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