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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.

I don’t do very well without fear. There needs to be a part of me saying, ‘That’s going to fail,’ so I can prove myself wrong.”

– Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe

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

– Mary Oliver

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.”

– Jack Kerouac

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

– Uli Becker, president, Reebok International

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which obstacles vanish.”

– John Quincy Adams

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.”

– Aristotle

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

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

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

– Brian Tracy

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

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

– Andrew Carnegie

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.”

– August Rush

The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation that indicate opportunities for success.”

– Peter F. Drucker

Confidence is the most important thing you can teach someone… if you can teach them confidence, you don’t have to teach them anything else.”

– Vin Diesel

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

– Albert Schweitzer

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

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

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

– Bruce Lee

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

– Carl Rogers

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

– Anna Pavlova

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.”

– Anthony Trollope

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

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

– General Omar Bradley

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

A truly forgiving person is someone who experiences all the anger merited by injustice and still acts with fairness and compassion.”

– Martha Beck

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

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

– Norwegian proverb

Do not be afraid of mistakes, providing you do not make the same one twice.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

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

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

Remove those ‘I want you to like me’ stickers from your forehead
and, instead, place them where they truly will do the most good—on your mirror.”

– Susan Jeffers

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

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

– J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

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

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

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