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REMARKS BY:
DR. ROBERT B. INGRAM


“DEDICATION FOR BARBARA HAWKINS
BARBARA J. HAWKINS ELEMENTARY”
By
Robert B. Ingram, Ph.D.

Thank you for inviting me to be a participant in this dedication ceremony; it is a privilege for me to be part of this occasion. You see for me, Barbara J. Hawkins was not just a principal - she was a special kind of principal -one who sought to transform her students' lives. She was a principal who truly identified with her students. She listened to her students' concerns and her staff followed her lead because she invited them not to 'go along to get along', but to challenge the conventional order and rearrange the educational order to inspire our students to succeed in spite of obstacles that were in their path.

She was a molder and a shaker who understood that students today are being educated in a very different world than her parents and grandparents grew up in. Today's world is filled with crack houses, school house shootings, child abuse, child neglect and abandonment just a few of the differences so severe that sometimes, teachers and administrators are afraid to enter their Schools to teach ---but enter the schools they must. They have no choice but to set aside their fears and frustrations and recapture the imagination of our students. ];or you see, Barbara Hawkins understood that these are not children from outer space or from another planet, they are our sons and our daughters.



To contact Dr. Ingram, please call 305-995-1340 or e-mail ringram@dadeschools.net