On his first day as a teacher at Webster Avenue Elementary School, in Florida, Ulysses Floyd met briefly with the school’s principal. She then walked with him to a cafeteria, where 32 third grad- ers were waiting for him.
“The principal said, ‘This is Mr. Floyd, your teacher,’” he recalls.
And then the principal walked out of the cafeteria, leaving him there with his brand new charges.
“I thought, ‘What am I going to do?” Floyd says. “So I called the roll.”
His jitters were short-lived because he was prepared to face the unknown. The Army taught him that. But there was something 2016 NEA-Retired Distinguished Service Award winner Floyd didn’t have to learn. That was his passion, joy, and pride in his work, and his will- ingness to use his knowledge to guide and mentor his stu- dents, other teachers, and fellow NEA members.
Different Paths, One Mission: Excellence
NEA-Retired Distinguished Service award winners are a unique group. They have varied backgrounds, hail from all parts of the country, and travelled different paths to become educators.
Some, like Floyd and Gene Craig, the 2015 winner, served in our nation’s military—in the Army and in the Navy, respectively— before beginning their careers.
For other award winners, education runs in the family—like 2009 award recipient Agnes Chavis and Jim Sproul, who accepted the award in 2012.
“My mother was a public school teacher for 37 years,” Sproul says. “She was a single mother who raised two of us, and education was something that she valued and wanted us to get. I also had some tremendous elementary school teachers.” Although they took different routes toward their education careers, the awardees share similar qualities: a passion for public education, as well as a deep commitment to both NEA and NEA-Retired, plus a deep desire to serve their communities.
And despite the respect they – have earned from their students, peers, and community members, and all the accolades they have received to recognize their stellar careers, they all display a deep humility about the work they have done, and the awards they have won.
“I felt very honored for the recognition by my fellow retirees and yet very humbled knowing there are so many other retirees out there so deserving of this award,” Craig says.
Over the years—in the classroom, at the bar- gaining table and during yearly NEA Representative Assemblies and NEA-Retired Annual Meetings—NEA Distinguished Service Award winners have witnessed great change, have helped bring about that change and in many cases continue to advocate for change to help children, teachers, and education support professionals.
Like Floyd, who celebrated his 88th birthday late last year, many of the recipients have come too far to slow down now.
We profiled our 2016 Distinguished Service Award winner, and caught up with a few past winners. We asked all of them to reflect on the profession, share what inspires them, and to look ahead to what’s next.
Young Man With A Plan
Born in Yulee, Florida, and raised in Jacksonville, Floyd described himself as “not the best student in the world.” But at 17, he says he found himself, and decided to enlist in the Army. Impressed af- ter meeting an Army recruiter—and watching a movie about boxers Joe Louis and
Max Schmeling—he was ready to sign up after receiving his parents’ blessings.
After his Army enlistment, Floyd entered Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), meeting many people, including return- ing veterans like himself and his wife, Dorothy Floyd, whom he married in 1952. He would join the Army a second time—this time, as a com- missioned officer. Floyd began his teaching career in 1958 at Webster Avenue Elementary after concluding his military service and earning his master’s degree in early elementary education.
“Education was one of the best things [Afri- can Americans] could do,” Floyd says of teaching when he began. “Orlando was still a segregated area.” And his parents were at the forefront of his mind as he was about to embark upon his career. “I wanted to make my parents proud of me.”
Although he had to jump in with both feet on his first day, mentor- ship would become one of his hallmarks. And so would his and his family’s activism.
An Activist Family
Early in his career, Floyd joined his local education Association, which then counted both teachers and principals as members. Edu- cation Associations were segregated then, but they would soon merge and integrate.
Part of the Associations’ coming together as one was participating in the 1968 Florida-wide walkout—technically a mass resignation—to highlight the underfunding in public schools across Florida.
Floyd’s daughter, Karen Floyd, was a seventh grader at the time and vividly recalls her family’s activism.
She says that her parents called a family meeting to explain to her what was about to happen, and why it was important. “Dad said, ‘I’m going to sign a letter of resignation.’” Her mother would remain in the classroom. One of Karen’s aunts also participated, showing that the walkout was a family affair.
Karen also remembers being warned that the action would not be without cost. Floyd answered forthrightly when she asked if signing the resignation letter would mean that he would no longer have a job: “‘Yes. But we want to be able to control our own destinies as teachers,’” she recalls. “They were always very open with me,” says Karen.
The action left an impression on her. “It solidified that you fight for what you believe in,” she says.
After several years as an active member of Orange County Class- room Teachers Association (OCCTA), Floyd assumed greater leadership positions. He served one-year terms as both second and first vice president before being elected OCCTA president in 1974. He was the first African
American to serve in that position. Karen re- calls her mother serving as her father’s campaign manager.
Winning was a big deal for Floyd. “It was a dream come true, to tell you the truth,” he says.
While he knew that a few people would have to adjust to his presidency, he didn’t pay it much attention. Floyd was too excited about the work ahead to worry about such things. “It didn’t worry me, to tell you the truth,” he says. “I had a good executive board, director, and staff that helped me out a great deal.”
His year-long term marked 12 months of great change for the profession, and the Association. Floyd says that the biggest achievement of his tenure was recognition of OCCTA as the teacher’s official bargaining agent in 1975, which allowed them to bargain for things such as salaries and work days.
He describes his fellow educators prior to the law’s passage as being treated as second class citizens in Florida. Without any rules or regulations to protect their rights, school boards could move teachers around at will and fire teachers without cause.
Floyd says NEA’s assistance—which included training to lobby and speak with the Florida legislature—was invaluable to their efforts to win the bargaining law. “They [NEA] would send people down to train our people on how to talk to the legislators to get that done,” he says.
His wins were not only found in the legislature or at the bargaining table, but also in the classroom with his beloved students.
“With my classes, I used to do activities. I started a student council at my school. I had a father and son ro- deo, a mother and daughter tea—I got involved doing those things be- cause I really enjoyed my job.”
And it lasts. “You are instrumental in molding people,” he says of an ed- ucator’s role.
It is no surprise that Floyd has inspired former students to follow in his footsteps. Recalling one of his many visits to Career Day events, Floyd says, “I went to a class for Career Day. I walked into the room, and the teacher says, ‘Class, this is Mr. Floyd. He was my sixth-grade teacher!’ And here she is, teaching class, as a teacher herself.”
Retired, Not Retiring
Floyd retired from being an active teacher in public schools in 1990, but his commitment to education and activism remains ironclad.
“He is here, there, and everywhere with his hand in almost everything there is to have, especially when it comes to OCCTA and NEA and FEA,” his daughter Karen says.
That is the spirit of many of the award winners. They personify how to be more than “just a member.” Several awardees were instrumental in pioneering their state NEA-Retired chapters.
2009 recipient Agnes Chavis was direct when asked why she chose active membership with NEA-Retired: “I knew what NEA had done for me, so I kept involved.”
Kathleen Roberts, who won the NEA-Retired Distinguished Service award in 2003, was an original part of the group that organized NEA- Retired in 1983. Roberts acted because she wanted more for retired teachers on the national level.
“I thought there should be some- thing for the retired, too. We orga- nized and contacted every retired teacher who might be interested in helping,” Roberts says.
According to 2008 Distin- guished Service Award winner John Campbell, the transition from being an active classroom teacher to becoming a retiree – with membership in NEA-Retired was natural.
“Becoming a national member, you join the state and you join for the local and you continue advocating for children, schools, and public education. You don’t give up. You don’t just go off and do nothing,” Campbell says.
Award winner Craig expresses a similar senti- ment. “It was just a shift from active membership to retired membership,” he says.
“I was active with the implementation of the Illinois Education Association (IEA)-Retired and also organized the North Lake IEA- Retired Chapter, serving as its president for just a little over 20 years, and [I] served six years on the Council of IEA Retirees,” he says.
Sproul was another state pio- neer. He was one of six people who helped form Kentucky Education Association (KEA)-Retired. “I had been on the NEA Board, and when NEA-Retired formed, I was one of the first to buy a lifetime member- ship in it,” Sproul says.
Floyd embodies that spirit, too. After his stellar career and numerous honors. Last year, OCCTA awarded Floyd its Human and Civil Rights Award, and the Association has even named a room after him. He could have chosen to slow down, but that is not his way. He maintains a busy schedule of guiding, advising, and attending meetings long after retiring from the classroom.
His daughter, Karen, agrees. “He didn’t like— and still doesn’t like—to stay at home long.”
He served two one-year terms as president of Orange CTA-Retired, and served on the NEA Board of Directors, and the NEA Retired Advisory Council. He recently began a second three- year term as an at-large representative on the Florida Education Association (FEA) Board, and still makes time to work with two of OCCTA’s committees.
Through his memberships and service, he is still an advocate, fight- ing for issues like charter schools, equitable public school funding, and strengthening the teaching profession.
He also speaks glowingly of the younger teachers he mentors and advises. “I help them out a great deal,” Floyd says. “When they need help, I’m right there with them.”
A Proud Moment
Floyd counts among his mentees Marilyn War- ner. The FEA-Retired president was recently elected to the NEA Board of Directors as one of the body’s retiree members. Warner has known Floyd for nearly 13 years, forging a strong friendship by working on initiatives and trav- elling to meetings and conven- tions together.
Warner has had a chance to witness firsthand the high regard people hold for Floyd.
She shares the story of an NEA member attending her first Repre- sentative Assembly, recalling that Floyd told the person, “‘I’m going to teach you how to go up to the mic and make a motion.’ He looks for people and wants to teach people.”
“When he speaks, everyone listens,” Warner said. “So many people look at his example and say, ‘I want to be like him.’”
So when considering nominees for the Distinguished Service Award, choosing Floyd was obvious. “It was immediate. I knew we had a winner,” Warner says.
Floyd was proud when he learned he won the award.
Karen Floyd was happy about it, too. “Being nominated meant a lot to him, and whatever means a lot to him means a lot to me.”
She attended the ceremony, and even helped her father craft his speech. Sitting in the audience, however, was a deeply moving experience for her.
“I kept wishing my Mom was there,” she says of her mother, Dorothy Floyd, who died in 2013. “She would have loved it.”
Even in his happiness, Warner says Floyd expressed surprise when she told him he won the award. “He is so humble,” she says. All the award winners felt a deep sense of humility and honor when they won their awards.
While pleased to have received the honor, John Campbell does not think he has done anything beyond what his colleagues have done, which is “educate, protect, and guide children.”
Campbell is proud that he “bred into children and friends a love of education. I count that as a real honor of my life.”
Driven to Achieve Even More
NEA-Retired Distinguished award winners could have chosen to slow their activism and quiet their ardor for education, but they have not. If anything, they have fired up their activism and involvement over the years.
For Agnes Chavis, the 2009 winner, that means continuing her legacy of teaching for the next generation. She has two scholarships named in her honor: The Agnes Chavis and Eva Jones Family Scholarship, a new scholarship started by her family last year, and the Dial-Chavis scholarship, given to a student member of North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE). The latter scholarship honors Chavis’ work within NCAE.
Jean Savidge helped begin Washington Educa- tion Association-Retired, and helped to conceive the Distinguished Service Award in 2000. Today, she conducts pre-retirement seminars to help active teachers plan for retirement. In 2014, she was named a recipient of the honor she helped to create.
The Distinguished Service Award winners have witnessed and shepherded lots of change during their careers. But one thing remains the same: the complete commitment to teaching children and public education.
Awardee Kathleen Roberts captures that spir- it. She says that families were so much a part of a child’s success— the same remains true today— and that she always tried to incor- porate families as much as she could, striving to make a magical place for her students when they entered her classroom.
“My heart is in my teaching,” she says.
John Campbell agrees. “Teachers in this nation work very hard in the area of justice for all children—not just justice for this child or that child, but every child,” Campbell says.
“I’m just proud of my union, and my teachers and support personnel who do the everyday work of raising our babies to be successful citizens,” he adds.
For Ulysses Floyd, his career in education has been energizing—his life’s work, and joy. And he still describes himself as an elementary school teacher.
“From the day I walked in that classroom until the day I walked out, I was excited about teaching,” Floyd says.
“It was something I was made to do.”
Nominations for this year’s presentation must be postmarked by April 15, 2017. For more, visit nea.org/DSA and click on 2017 NEA-Retired Distinguished Service Award.
