A shining example

by reenee, Santa Maria

Have you ever noticed how the worst of the worst always makes the front page, especially when it involves the salacious? When it's good deeds, or amazing accomplishments, the story is relegated to a lesser part of the newspaper. This is no less true for the marginally acceptable Santa Maria Times.

Today's front page featured story was about the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department needing more officers. Section B, page 3, had a headline that read, Lauded local woman laid to rest. This woman was Dorothy Jackson, an educator for 40 years, the last 10 as the Principal of Clarence Ruth School, in Lompoc, California. She was the first black woman to hold that position, and by all accounts did her job admirably. Some will argue that this story was where it needed to be due to the other obituaries on the same page. Well, sorry, this is not a valid argument. The day before there was a front page story on the less accomplished former mayor of Santa Maria, George Hobbs. Yes, he was the longest serving councilman and mayor, but he was also the man who said that this town had a "Mexican problem." The story was all about how there were two hundred people paying their last respects. This man's passing apparently elevated him to sainthood. Pretty much the same thing happened when the 40th president died.

Getting back to Dorothy Jackson. She was a force to be reckoned with, a proud, honorable and strong woman. According to this sadly abbreviated story, Ms. Jackson was a confidante of superintendents and mayors who fought tenaciously for programs to assist fieldworkers and single mothers.

That was the portrait painted by speakers from the diverse strands of Jackson's life as they gathered Saturday morning to share recollections of a woman too strong to be denied, yet who never forgot from whence she came.

A crowd of 300 composed of family, her Beta Sigma Pi sorority, staff and clients from the Dorothy Jackson Family Resource Center, members of her church, and scores of colleagues from the Lompoc Unified School District filled First Presbyterian Church.

Rubbing shoulders with the prominent were dozens of people associated with Jackson's proudest creation, the family resource center that bears her name.

After Jackson retired in 1995 she served as chairman of the school district's School Attendance Review Board (SARB) which monitors school attendance. “Stories are legion of her challenging parents,” Steve Straight said afterward. Bradley added that it seemed “dishes clattered” in those meetings.

But Jackson is also widely credited for changing SARB's approach away from a strictly punitive one. “It became more parent friendly,” said Cindy Callaham, a member of the SARB board with Jackson. “Truancy is just the symptom. She was Mother Teresa, Dr. Phil and Santa Claus all in one.”

As news of her death spread, heartfelt testimonies jammed the center's phone lines. They came from people spanning the American tapestry of ethnicity and income and their descriptions were as revealing as the books Jackson so prized.

Her direct style was evidenced with the following:

“What are you doing here? Get your butt into college.”

Those were the sledgehammer words Dorothy Jackson wielded on one of her former students when she saw him working in a fast-food outlet. Today the anonymous young man is studying for the bar exam to become an attorney.

This is what teachers should attempt to become. This is the behavior, attitude and support that people in power should present to others. This is what the chunkheads in Washington, who are in a position to do the most good, will never understand. This woman was light years ahead of them with integrity and character, and those bozos will never know it.