3 longtime Florence 1 principals retire: What is their legacy? (2024)

FLORENCE — Three longtime principals at Florence 1 Schools are retiring after nearly a century of combined experience.

Debbie Cribb, Elizabeth Jackson and Tara Newton chose to hang up their hats at the conclusion of the 2023-2024 school year. The three served as principals at four different elementary schools in the district.

They painted hallways on their hands and knees for weeks. They dressed head-to-toe in itchy, heavy costumes. They gave 110 percent.

Now, they’re handing over their principalships at McLaurin Elementary, Lester Elementary, Timrod Elementary and Briggs Elementary. All three are completing a full circle in one way or another.

Passing the torch

Debbie Cribb painted the hallways at McLaurin.

The hallways were constricted— swallowed by dark brown bricks. So, she painted.

On hands and knees, in chairs, on ladders. Cribb, her husband and a few faithful teachers gave the school a facelift when she took over as principal in 1999.

In all, she’s worked in education for nearly 50 years— 40 of which were spent at Florence 1 Schools

“This is not a job. It's a calling, and I think that’s the difference,” Cribb said. “All you want to do is make every place and every kid you touch better because you were there.”

Cribb added Lester to her roster at the start of the 2023-2024 school year. Half of McLaurin’s student population took over Lester’s building to help ease overcrowding— her guidance moved with them.

She’s spent more than two decades at McLaurin. Cribb blazed a trail for the school’s Montessori program— it grew large enough to warrant a wait list and another school building to compensate for growth.

In the mid-1990s, Cribb helped open Moore Intermediate School. As its first principal, she helped pull up the school by the bootstraps when the community — and teachers— were reluctant to embrace it, she said. Today, it's been transformed into Moore Middle, the district’s fourth middle school.

It’s where Cribb met then-teacher Amy Williams. Cribb was a constant source of guidance, Williams said, from helping in the classroom to playing matchmaker. Williams met her husband around 20 years ago thanks to some friendly involvement from her now-mother-in-law and Cribb.

Now, after decades of working together from Moore to McLaurin, thousands of pieces of advice and hundreds of inside jokes, Williams is taking the reins as McLaurin’s new principal.

“It makes me feel so good that I can hand it to her and know that it's going to live on,” Cribb said. “To me, that's the sign that it worked.”

Ending at the beginning

Cruella de Vil, the Cat in the Hat, a snowman, the Mad Hatter.

Elizabeth Jackson took on quite a few personas at Timrod Elementary School. She became the school’s principal in 2020 after spending nearly three decades in a variety of roles.

She was a student teacher at Timrod in the early 1990s. In the fall of 1991, she earned her first real position— teaching a prekindergarten class at Timrod. Jackson spent the first few years of her career at the school until she and her husband moved to the Lowcountry.

After just a year in Berkeley County, she was back in Florence. And back at Timrod.

“It’s just been a special place since I started here,” Jackson said. “I didn’t want to leave it. I never thought about leaving, going to another place in Florence.”

Jackson spent all but one year of her 31-year education career at Timrod.

She taught multiple grade levels, spent years as an instructional coach, then became an assistant principal.

For Jackson, Timrod was the definition of family. Each role was a new way to widen the family circle.

The family feeling drew Jackson back to Timrod when she came from Berkeley County, she said.

Today, teachers and coworkers she met at the school are her friends and mentors. Students Jackson taught remember both her and Timrod. They serve as proof that she helped spread familial love.

For years, Jackson threw on costumes.

She was an instructional coach dressed as a snowman. She was an assistant principal in the Mad Hatter’s bright red wig and big coat.

But Jackson never thought she’d be a principal dressed head-to-toe in a fuzzy Cat in the Hat suit — she was too busy doing everything else.

“I just did what I thought was meant to be at that time, and it worked out, it’s just been a blessing,” Jackson said. “It is a full-circle moment.”

Taking a walk

Tara Newton doesn’t like to give a job less than her best.

She gave her all to her first job in education— a long-term substitute position and cheerleading coach in Marion. She gave her all to the former Moore Intermediate School— the same place she student-taught.

Newton put in massive amounts of work to get a master’s degree while still teaching every day, working her way up to a curriculum coordinator position.

She wouldn’t do anything less than 110 percent for Briggs Elementary School, she said, when she became principal a decade ago.

“So 10 years at 110 percent, how do you do that? You have a really good support system at home,” Newton said.

Newton got to work the moment she had the keys. She and her husband scoured the school. They hung pictures, set up decorations and scrubbed bathrooms. Newton brought her kids, then a third-grader and a kindergartner, along for the ride.

Briggs was a hot spot for a lot of Newton’s family time, she said. Newton’s kids went to school at Briggs before moving on to middle and high school. Her husband was always on standby to help with whatever she needed.

Days would stretch to 12 or 14 hours at Briggs, Newton said, because she wouldn’t give it less than her best.

Now, after a decade full of early morning wakeup calls and family time at Briggs, Newton’s youngest child is set to be a high school sophom*ore. Her oldest child will be heading off to college in the fall.

After years of 110 percent, Newton’s oldest child went to Briggs just ahead of his high school graduation. He and his friends were a part of Newton’s first set of students at Briggs. They all went back to walk the halls in celebration, wearing graduation caps and gowns.

They were all there when Newton walked through the door a decade ago as Briggs’s new principal.

“Let’s go full-circle again,” Newton said. “Walk out the door with them, full circle.”