Spring-Wallace makes real difference in students' lives
Sept. 15, 2002

Photo by ELIZABETH A. MUNDSCHENK Jennifer Spring-Wallace

By BILL FARRELL
Observer-Dispatch

It’s apparent that quality education is synonymous with the name Jennifer Spring-Wallace.

A former Fulbright scholarship winner, she has traveled the world, speaks several languages, authored a textbook, been heavily involved in English as a Second Language in Utica, works with refugee children and is a mother to three young boys.

Oh, and by the way, she’s also principal at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Cornhill.

Now she can add Accent on Excellence Award winner to her list of accomplishments.

As one of her nominators, Nancy Kelly, director of Utica Safe Schools/Healthy Students Partnership Inc., puts it:

“She is the definition of what this award was intended to be — a young leader choosing to stay in her hometown, working daily to make a difference in the lives of the children and their families.”

After growing up in Uticersity. After that, it was on to Central America under a USIA State Department Fellowship.

“I was teaching English in Guatemala City, doing teacher training in the countryside and working on curriculum,” she said.

She came back to Utica in 1990 and worked for the school district before setting out, with her young sons, to Poland on a Fulbright scholarship. “I didn’t speak the language, but I learned it,” she said.

She returned to Utica in 1994. “There was a large ESL population here, and I got a job at Utica College setting up an ESL program.” But she wanted to get back into the Utica school district. She became an ESL teacher at Thomas R. Proctor Senior High School in 1995. “It was then I knew I wanted to become a school administrator.”

She was assistant principal at John F. Kennedy Middle School for two years and created an “ethni-city” program there. “So many kids were coming to my office for discipline. I felt we needed a real comprehensive program to learn about each other. Education is the way to do that.”

Spring-Wallace applied for the principal’s job at King school and now is in her second year there. With the job came challenges. The school has the highest poverty level in the district, she said.

But test scores are up. Last year, based on work of the previous year, King was named the most improved school in the state on the fourth-grade math assessment and one of the most improved in fourth-grade English.

Spring-Wallace has been secretary of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees and teaches refugee children. She also works on behalf of Jesus Christ Tabernacle of David Outreach Inc.

She is happy to be back in her hometown, where she knew she could make a difference. “There’s no place I would rather be than in the Utica City School District,” she said. “It’s been good to me.”