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Ann Monday, Superintendent, City of Fairfax Schools

COLUMN = EDUCATION

Educational leader and City of Fairfax resident Ann Monday became superintendent of the City of Fairfax Schools on July 1, 2007. She retired on June 30 as the assistant superintendent of instructional services for Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), a district she has worked in since 1973 when she became a teacher at Kilmer Intermediate School in Vienna.

She then served as chairperson of the English department at Chantilly High School from 1976-1980, when she became an administrative aide at Marshall High and subsequently a sub-school principal at Lake Braddock High School.

In 1984 she was appointed the assistant principal at Fairfax High until 1987, when she became associate principal at Robinson Secondary School. After a stint as the principal at Longfellow Middle School from 1990-1992, she became the principal at Robinson, where she was responsible for managing more than 4,000
students and 300 staff members.

In 2003, Monday was tapped to become Cluster VI superintendent, and was responsible for 24 elementary and secondary schools.

The following year, she took on a division-wide leadership position as the FCPS assistant superintendent of instruction, responsible for all instructional programs from pre-K through adult education.

FOR MORE INFORMATION visit the City of Fairfax Schools website, www.cityoffairfaxschools.org. Or contact Superintendent Ann Monday by email, amonday@fairfaxva.gov.

As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

– William Butler Yeats

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott

4oz tequila + 1oz TripleSec + 2oz lime juice + 1oz simple syrup (sugar=water), 1 cup crushed ice. Shake + dance around the kitchen.

– Avenida Margarita

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

– Thomas Edison

If you want to be busy, keep trying to be perfect. If you want to be happy, focus on making a difference.”

– Lisa Earle McLeod

Some things are destined to be—it just takes us a couple of tries
to get there.”

– J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

– Steve Jobs

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

Many people prefer to play it safe when it comes to business matters. Are you willing to take risks in the pursuit of entrepreneurial success?”

– Steven Schussler

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

I always maintained that the greatest obstacle in life isn’t danger, it’s boredom. The battle against it is responsible for most of the events in the world — good or ill.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it.”

– Norwegian proverb

Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.”

– Gandi

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois

Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

This is the age when magical technologies make more and more radically fun ideas plausible, even easy. You’re only limited by your creativity.”

– Martha Beck

Your own words are the bricks and mortar
of the dreams you want to realize.
 The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience.”

– Sonia Croquette

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

They who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing.”

– Hindu Proverb

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”

– Bruce Lee

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leo Jozef Suenens

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

Whosoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whosoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them.”

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

If you were independently wealthy and never had to work a day in your life, would you still choose to spend your time attempting to become a successful entrepreneur?”

– Steven Schussler