2021
Lacy’s Support Creates Positive Learning Environments Brock Turnipseed
“H
ome is where the heart is.”
This famous quote accurately describes Mandy Lacy’s career in education. She first walked into Pass Christian Public School District’s DeLisle Elementary School (DES) in 2002 as a second grade teacher. Twenty years later, she still walks the same halls as the school’s principal. Having been inside the four walls of a classroom for two decades, she knows the daily support teachers and students need. Mississippi emphasizes social emotional learning for students, but Lacy also emphasizes her teachers’ own social and emotional needs. “If we’re not supporting them and helping them feel like this is a good place to be, then why wouldn’t they want to go somewhere else? We need to support them in any way we can in the classroom. They need support just as much as the kids do,” she said. For Lacy, supporting her teachers creates learning environments in which students feel valued. This focus on social and emotional support for her teachers and students earned her 2021 Mississippi Administrator of the Year (MAOY) from the Mississippi Department of Education and the Office of Teaching and Leading.
School Focus
10
Spring 2022
