Principal Tracey Franklin Feels an Emotional Bond with Walkersville Students and Community

by Eikaiva Boyer for Walkersville High School Lion’s Pride

The principal of Walkersville High School Tracey Franklin uses her past experiences to motivate and drive students’ everyday into setting high goals for their future. “I let my opinion [be] very loudly known that I am incredibly happy here, I love it here. I feel like this community has become an extended family of mine,” said Franklin.

Before she took on the role of being principal, she was an assistant principal at Oakdale High School for three years. “It was a great preparatory experience. Oakdale’s an experience I will never have again as an administrator.” Franklin found that at Oakdale, she took on a lot of responsibilities because the only other assistant principal there was out of the building for almost half of the year. Because of this, she had the opportunity to learn a lot of different things, supervise an abundant of different departments, and be in charge of different areas that a young assistant principal wouldn’t typically be involved in because those responsibilities would be shared. “I learned a lot, and I learned it fast because I didn’t have a choice,” she said with a laugh. “It benefited me in the long run because then I was able to be promoted to principal. I’m very grateful that Frederick County Public Schools had enough confidence in me to give me the chance to be a principal.”

Franklin also had the opportunity to be part of an administrative team at Oakdale that opened up a brand new school. “When you have the opportunity to make a school and make it your own and build it from scratch, it’s just an incredible opportunity. There’s no such thing as learning traditions; you create them. There is no such thing as fixing the problems, you just start from the ground up. That experience gave me a lot of educational and professional knowledge on how to build something basically from the earth.”

Franklin’s original plan in college was to pursue sports medicine and become a sports medical doctor. At the time she was playing Division I basketball, which comes with serious time restraints. Adding to that, the demands of being a pre-med student would not work at the college she was attending. “I kind of had to reevaluate. I was lost and didn’t know what to do. One summer when I was in college I volunteered and was a coach for Special Olympics. I fell in love with a little guy with Down syndrome. He changed my life. It’s because of special education that I knew I wanted to go into education.” It was a long process for Franklin to get to the administrative level. “It was the way my ship navigated across the seas, (for example, having different leadership positions) I found myself navigated to administration.”

If Franklin was not an administrator, she feels she would stay close to her roots of mathematics and coaching. Before she became a principal, she taught mathematics and was certified in special education. Franklin has always enjoyed basketball, playing it through her middle school, high school, and college years, so she’s always wanted to go back to coaching. “I know without a doubt I’d still be coaching basketball.”

If Franklin wasn’t in education, she would pursue two life joys of hers: her artistic side and her love of wineries. “I probably would’ve gone back and done something with interior design. I enjoy home makeovers [and] thinking outside the box. I’ve always been the one that is called for advice in my family or from my friends [for interior design questions].” Franklin’s family and friends always call her saying, ‘Hey, come take a look at my house. What do you think?’ “I could totally see myself doing one of those total rehab shows, where you buy an old house and completely transform it into something else.” Franklin was around real estate a lot when she was growing up. “It was a way to express myself because I was artistic and loved to draw and paint.”

A later life aspiration of Franklin’s is to open her own winery with its own restaurant. “I grew up on the edge of my grandfather’s farm, and I would love to open my own winery. Not have it just be a winery but have it be a restaurant because I enjoy cooking and growing vegetables. I enjoy visiting wineries, [and] the history behind it. People have no idea the complexity of creating and harvesting.”

The future, on the other hand, had other ideas for Franklin, directing her path to teaching high school students. When she was at East Carolina University studying to be a teacher, she was pursuing K-12 certification. This required her to have an internship in elementary, middle, and high schools. “I got the opportunity to sense where I [felt] most comfortable, and it didn’t take very long to figure out that the high school kids [are] really where I felt my skills were best aligned. High school was where my heart was. I felt like I was more equipped to work with high school kids. I couldn’t do what elementary teachers do, and I think they’d think the same; it takes a different level of patience,” she commented with a laugh. “I think it’s just your niche, and you have to find it. There’s not a doubt in my mind that I’m meant to be teaching high school kids.”

Franklin has two children, a ten year-old daughter and a five-year-old son. “They’re the love of my life; they’re my world.” Reflecting on having kids of her own and how it makes her a better principal, she has to constantly balance her principal hat with her parent hat, which is not an easy task. “When it comes to your own children, you can be very blinded and very biased; when it comes to being a principal, you can be very black and white. Having both of those as a part of my person helps me balance my decision making, my approach, how I deal with the community and [my] family. Even though I have this very high-expectation, stern, focused mission as a principal, I have the balance and compassion and care as a parent. I don’t think I would be nearly as effective as a school leader if I wasn’t a parent.”

Franklin added that in our society, many people believe that once a child reaches a certain age, they’ve molded who they are, but Franklin doesn’t believe this theory. “I think 14-18 is an incredibly impressionable age [where] you can make such an impact on their life decisions. I just feel incredibly blessed to have that moment with them in that four years [of high school].”

Franklin sees the potential in each and every individual at Walkersville High and she always seems so driven in her actions at Walkersville. This drive is due in part to how Franklin was raised. “I was raised by very hardworking grandparents and parents. I had blue-collar grandparents that I watched work from sun up to sundown. My dad was an incredibly hard worker and still is.” Although Franklin feels she is very much like her mom when it comes to her motivation and her career. “My mom is 68 years old, and she still works as many hours a week as I do. I watched my family demonstrate that type of commitment to hard work every day. There was no faltering. Every role model in my immediate family worked hard, and [had] long hours, and [they] became successful through [that] hard work.”

With all the hard work that Franklin puts in at Walkersville High, she is the type of person to beat herself up when things don’t always go well. “I am my own worst critic,” Franklin stated. She still struggles with life balance. “My health has really taken a toll over the past several years. That’s the toughest thing, is life balance. I’m very critical of myself. That turns into burning the candle at both ends and not taking care of myself the way I should physically because I just want to please [everyone] and do everything that I need to get done.” This includes finding time for herself, finding time for family, and finding time for friends but also making sure that the students and the staff at Walkersville High know that she’s invested in them and that she cares and loves them and that they know they’re important to her. “That’s been my greatest challenge, for a lack of better words, is trying to be in two places at once.”

Taking the challenge of balancing her personal life and job life, one aspect of Franklin has always stayed the same, “Anyone that knows me knows I am a dreamer. I’m never satisfied to a flaw. I’m always looking at the next thing and sometimes I have to slow down and remind myself [to] enjoy the moment because I’m always thinking about what’s coming next. It’s almost to a fault because you have to learn to be satisfied with where you are.” She feels that she is satisfied for a period of time but then she’s ready to take the next leap of faith and embark on her next journey.

Franklin truly believes that “All of us as little girls are princesses. We want to be a princess and live in the big castle, or want to be a singer, or an actor, or be famous. I think that’s in every little girl, I don’t care who you are, all little girls are like that. Whether they want to grow up to be scientists or astronauts, or live in Disney’s castle; every little girl has an imagination and dreams. I think because of society today a lot of little girls lose that. As they grow older it gets suppressed — they try too hard to keep up with societal norms, whether it be how they look, how they act, are they popular, do they get attention [from] boys — there’s a lot of things that take that imaginative dreaming component away from young girls. I thank the lord every day that it was never taken from me. It’s crazy that at 41 I’m still a dreamer. I just hope my little girl never loses it either.”   Franklin can still feel that she is going to do something great. “I don’t know what it is but I can see it, I can feel it. I’m always thinking about what [I can] do next.”

When Franklin was in school she faced the challenges of your average high school student. “As a high school student I struggled with bullying, mostly in the athletic area. I was very tall at a very young age. Through middle school I was bullied pretty heavily for my height; some of it was direct, some of it was indirect.  I stand six feet today and people don’t realize that I was five foot ten inches in the fifth grade. It’s crazy how different that is.” When Franklin went into high school she made varsity basketball as a freshman. She also played varsity field hockey at a younger age. “I underwent a lot of bullying and harassment by older girls. I know now [that] was mostly because of insecurities that they had, but at the time it was hard for me to see that. I was always that kid that didn’t fit in at the dances or the middle school parties. Being younger, I felt like I was always on the outside looking in. There were times it actually got so significant that I thought about giving up basketball because I couldn’t take the harassment and some of the nastiness of the girls that I played with.”

Another hurdle Franklin had to overcome was a speech disorder in elementary school. “I had to have speech and language intervention.” A lot of people would never believe this, but Franklin didn’t always have such confidence giving speeches to crowds. “For the longest time I couldn’t stand talking in front of a group of people. I was scared to death. I hated doing class presentations, I would have done anything but have to do that.”

Franklin overcame these challenges by tapping into what she had learned in athletics, as a player and a captain. “You cannot tell me that when you go out and play basketball or field hockey and beat up somebody, throw elbows, get sweaty, get dirty, to not develop confidence.”

Franklin also forced herself to take advocacy and leadership roles. “I was always involved in SGA (Student Government Association) and by the time I was a senior in Middletown High I was the president of SGA. I made myself take risks in leadership roles that forced me to have that exposure.” She also did public speaking throughout college, which led her to become a member of the Pirate Speaker Bureau (PSB). She eventually became president of the PSB and traveled down the East Coast. “I feel like you could put me in front of a group of people and it may not be perfect or eloquent, but I’m not scared to speak anymore. I’m not uncomfortable in my skin anymore.”

Franklin hasn’t always stuck to the same path. “I’ve had times in my life that I’ve wanted to change my path. I’ve had doubts. I’ve had times where I want to reevaluate. I had a very, very tough sophomore season at college playing basketball [because] we were not very good. There were times where I would ask myself, ‘Is this really something I [want to] do?’ But as far as the things that really have mattered in my life, whether it be basketball or teaching or coaching, I’ve never quit. I may have steered to a different path, but I’ve never quit. I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say there were days where I was like ‘Wow, can I do this forever?’

“Every job is stressful, and sometimes being an administrator is a thankless job. We get a lot more complaints than we get thank you’s, and that’s okay. You kind of know that going into it. Some days it weighs on you, but miraculously I have rich faith and I try to stay very Christianity grounded and I’ll get an email or a phone call from a past student, or a kid will come into this office and just wanted me to give him a hug because I made a difference in [his] life. God sends me these little messages that I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

Franklin feels that some things come naturally to her as a principal. “That’s an easy one: relationships with the kids. I don’t know why but I’ve always wanted to revert back to the mindset of a teenager, to be adaptable to them so they know I’m trying to see things through their lens. I may not always be good at taking all the parts and the pieces of the puzzle to create the vision, but I have the vision and I can see where I want us to go. Then [that’s] when I rely on the administrators and the staff and all the really great people at WHS to help put that puzzle together. I’ve been so blessed, my admin[istrator] team is amazing, the teachers here have been wonderful and of course the students and the community.”

Her favorite part of being principal is “Watching you guys grow up! It’s simple. I know that those same freshman that were in the auditorium the first month of school that I had to lecture and really come down on hard for some inappropriate behavior and not demonstrating exemplary Lion behavior are going to turn into these incredible young human beings and they’re [going to] do wonderful things. That’s my favorite part, watching a kid become something or see a kid overcome adversity or see a kid that has hardship and beat the odds. When a kid beats the odds, I feel like I am the luckiest person in the world that I got to see that happen and that I got to be a part of it. It is by far my favorite part of this job.”

“Your heart breaks when kids don’t do that. When you see ones that have potential and they never find it [or] reach it [or] explore it, that’s very frustrating. You feel like you failed somehow, but the majority of them turn it around or accomplish the goals that they set out to accomplish. It is my greatest life blessing to be able to see that and be a part of it.”

When Franklin eventually leaves Walkersville High School she wants her legacy to live on. “I want the kids at WHS to feel the way they do today about their school. I want the ‘Lion eyes’ to still mean something. I want our new logo to still mean something. I want the school spirit to grow and continue, not just athletically but in all of our extracurricular activities and in our academics. I want us to not settle for just being average. I want us to constantly quest to be as good as we [can] possibly be.”

“When I was a teenager in Middletown High School, there were two schools in this county in my mind that had one of the most exciting, rich-filled rivalries of school pride and confidence, and that was Walkersville and Middletown. When I first got [to Walkersville] all I had to compare Walkersville to was [when] I remembered it in the early 90’s. Although there was school pride here and there was school identity, I didn’t feel it when I walked through the halls; I didn’t see it. It was simple things, like I couldn’t find two lions on the wall that matched. When I asked kids the vision or mission of the school, nobody could really tell me. When I asked them if they were proud of their school, I would get some lukewarm answers at best. The admin[instrator] team (at the time the team was: Rumph, Liniger, and Murphy) knew it was something we had to bring back and it wasn’t something you could bring overnight. If there’s any legacy that’s left, I want it be ten years from now, long after I’m gone, to see Walkersville fighting  Middletown or Urbana for those top spots. I want to see Walkersville knocking on the door and going, ‘Hey, you’re not going to be top in the county forever. We’re coming to get you.’”

Franklin doesn’t normally like to share statistics with the students, but in 2014, only about 60% of the kids walking across the stage at graduation would have been classified as college or career ready because the juniors and seniors weren’t challenging themselves and taking some of those rigorous courses. “Last year’s graduating class was at 92%, to see a 30% gain of academic and career focus. [They were] challenging themselves to more rigorous, strenuous courses. It makes me feel good when I’m driving around Frederick and see the lion eyes on the back of a car, or I see kids tweet things that say ‘I love my school.’ Two years ago it started to happen but last year’s senior class really drove it home. They were so proud of who they were, and that’s what I want to see.”

Late in the summer when the teachers came back to the school Franklin made a movie for the teachers. One of the slides had lion eyes and it said “Please never forget this is where you work… but this is their alma mater.” “You could just see the teachers go silent. And when you think about that, that’s huge. ‘I worked at WHS, I taught at WHS.’ But they will forever say this is where I graduated from.”

With balancing her principal life with her personal life she will often go down to the ocean, where she believes she belongs, to relieve stress and to recoup. “My soul needs to be near the water. I’ve always been that way.” Being near the water centers her, “When my job gets to me, it’s not uncommon for me on a Friday night, to pack the suitcases after a football game, put the kids in the car, and head down to the shore. If I go three to four weeks at the most without being near the water, I am off.” Franklin had always had a goal to someday own her own beach house, which she succeeded in, in her mid-thirties. “I had a couple classes in college [where] I was bored out of my mind and I would always take a sketchbook with me [so] if the lectures got really boring or if I felt like the professor would get off on a tangent, I would pull that sketchbook out and I would just start to doodle and [they] were always around the same thing, basketball, or the ocean.”

One of the biggest ideas that Franklin pushes on students is to get out of the mindset of being excuse ridden. “Our society has not done well for making our own success. Take control of your life. Don’t wait for other people or other circumstances or environmental factors to make those decisions for you. You don’t have to look hard for someone with more hardships than you; we all have something.

“In a class of 35 kids, ten of them may be from a divided home, five of them struggle from diabetes or a medical disorder, five of them their home life is struggling financially, five of them are struggling, five of them have a dying parent, and maybe five of them had a major death in the family. We tend to be so self-absorbed; we think we are the only ones that have problems.” Franklin believes that you shouldn’t look at your problems in a bad way.“See them as making you stronger as a person. You have no idea how strong you can be.” Franklin actually has a sign in the front of her house so she sees it when she comes and goes. “It says, ‘I had no idea how strong I was until strong was the only thing I had.’” Franklin is also a major believer in the saying “Carpe diem (seize the day) and not taking advantage of really good things.” “You take accountability for your own life.”

At the end of the day Franklin may be exhausted but she is truly in love with what she does. “You know, it’s challenging. No two days are ever the same. I enjoy it because there’s a meaning to the work. I’ve always admired people who are in industries who make products. You can forever walk past that and say ‘I developed that. I created that.’ Our products are our students, and it’s like being able to have that small little piece in developing that product.”

She also would like to send a gracious thank you to the entire community, including her family, the administration, staff members, and the students. She also commented on how much she appreciates the students at Walkersville being nice to her children, especially her son. “When my son looks at (senior) Chad Gleason as someone to look up to, it’s great. One night at a football game, Chad did the simplest thing and talked football with my son for 30 seconds and put his helmet on his head. That really means something to me. I’m just so proud of the kids. I try to pay attention to what they are doing individually, but sometimes I have to see the big picture. We’re making huge strides, but at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.”