Principal
Cedar Hall Elementary School

Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation
Evansville, IN

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES AND AWARDS: Began teaching kindergarten in 1988 at Cedar Hall Elementary School, becoming principal in 1994. Named 1998 Administrator of the Year, an award by the Evansville Courier newspaper and the University of Evansville, and honored in 1997 by Youth Resources of Southwestern Indiana Youth Workers. Work with CHAIN, a neighborhood association, for programs that range from monthly Family Nights to on-site health services. Implemented district's first Full Service School program, offering after-school programs from ballet to basketball. Year-round schedule under study. Grant awards include Indiana Kid's First, Even Start, and Educate Indiana. Two first grade teachers are trained in Reading Recovery. 

EXCERPTS from comments by colleagues: At a neighborhood school with many students from inner-city housing known as the Fulton Projects, Cathlin Gray is called a visionary in education and in community collaboration. As a kindergarten teacher at Cedar Hall before becoming principal, she was known for a deep caring about students. As a teacher, she prepared the youngest students to read and write, and came to know about their families, about illnesses and tragedies, about unemployment, and when the rent was due in a school community with a 98 percent rate for free-and-reduced lunches. As a principal, she has "gone to the mat" to convince a sub-par teacher to resign, and as a principal, she devotes time beyond the school day to create school-centered services for families and the school's neighborhood. "She's fantastic. She is a superlative grant writer, but she also puts a lot of herself, and maybe some of her own money, into it." "She is a special person with great patience who loves those children and puts their needs before her own." "She does not understand 'No.'" As an educator, she is a bright star." Her kindergarten classroom came to include a "family resource center" with books, games, and toys that children could take home, as well as "family kindergarten activity kits" that parents could come to borrow. As principal, she uses her organizational skills to communicate needs through grant writing that developed the "resource shelf" into the full-blown Family Resource Center -- with a full-time social worker to administer its neighborhood involvement under the guidance of a board of directors. The school sponsors Family Night movies with popcorn and soft drinks, an open gymnasium, after-school workshops for families -- even GED classes for adults and a baseball league. Materials to lend now include videotapes, cassette tapes, and learning games, as well as clothing. "The building is truly a haven," one colleague said. "It pulls families together."