tcrow@taylorisd.org Clarence Wooldridge has served in a number of roles during his twenty-three year career at Taylor ISD. He began as a substitute teacher, and was then hired as a full time aide at T.H. Johnson. He later became the school’s art teacher, until one day a friend and colleague came to him with an idea that would take his career in a new direction.
“Mary Ancira was on campus at that time, teaching,” said Wooldridge. “She came to me and said, ‘Clarence, we need to go be principals’. So we went back to school and got our masters. We got our administrator certification.”
Wooldridge has served in several leadership positions since receiving that certification. He was the assistant principal at T. H. Johnson for 5 years, and briefly filled the role of coordinator for the Taylor Opportunity Center. About ten years ago he came into the role he is best known for: site coordinator for the Taylor ISD afterschool programs.
“I’ve had some great times, it’s been a great experience for me,” Wooldridge said. “I enjoy putting things together, taking an idea and making it happen.”
Wooldridge had a goal of serving 150 students each year, and usually had a two page waiting list of families wanting to get their children into the program. During the past ten years he has implemented several grant funded programs such as the Voyager Project and Flight School. These high interest, hands-on programs provided fun learning activities, including field trips to places like the Taylor Airport and iFly in Austin.
“The thing that would thrill me the most was when parents would show up at the facility and the kids were like, I don’t want to go home yet, I’m having too much fun,” Wooldridge said. “After the grants ended, we were still able to maintain quality programming.”
Born and raised in Taylor, Wooldridge played sports for the Ducks. He always wanted to work for the school system as a way of giving back what others had given to him. Although he has enjoyed working with his former teachers as colleagues, he was never able to call these mentors by their first name.
“Mrs. Nettie Robertson was my teacher when we were segregated at O.L. Price,” Wooldridge said. “She really got me interested in art, and I was an architect major when I went to Southwest Texas. I took a drawing class with Mrs. Greer and she convinced me to go into art education.”
Wooldridge also remembers being a student in Mary Lu Haase’s class.
“Everybody loves Mrs. Haase, and Mrs. Haase loves everybody,” Wooldridge said. “Once we integrated, she was my 4thgrade teacher and she really pushed academics for me. I credit much of my academic success to the way she taught and encouraged me to be such a good student. You could be the worst student in the world and she would make you feel like you were the greatest student on earth. I always appreciated her for that.”
Looking back, the best part of his career has been watching students grow up.
“One of the cool things now is when the kids grow up and you see them and they remember you,” Wooldridge said. “It’s good to hear from kids that you had some impact and they are having success.”
Now that he is retiring, Wooldridge plans to look for his next adventure. Whatever that might be, he wants to continue helping others and spend time with his two year old grandchild.
“I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought,” Wooldridge said. “I’ll just let the Lord guide me in whatever direction he wants me to go. He’s always taken care of me so I don’t worry about it so much.”
