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Peter Noonan, Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Service, Fairfax County Public Schools

COLUMN = EDUCATION

In 2006, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Jack D. Dale named Peter Noonan, Cluster VII assistant superintendent and former principal of Centreville High School, as the new assistant superintendent for instructional services, effective August 1.

Prior to that, Noonan has served as assistant superintendent for Cluster VII schools, including the Centreville, Chantilly, and Fairfax High School pyramids. In this position, he initiated instructional and organizational change using professional learning communities, increased accessibility to educational technology resources for students and staff members, and school leadership development to support diverse learners.

Noonan served as principal of Centreville High School from July 2004 until April 2006, where he developed a principal’s round table for aspiring student leaders, initiated a freshman transition team for rising ninth grade students, and secured funding for an Honors and Advanced Placement Summer Institute. Prior to that, he served as principal of Lanier Middle School. Noonan came to FCPS in 2001 to serve as assistant principal at Langley High School.

Prior to joining FCPS, Noonan served as dean of students, assistant principal, and principal of several schools in Albuquerque. He began his career as a special education teacher at Roosevelt Middle School in Albuquerque, where he was named Teacher of the Year in 1993.

Noonan has made numerous professional presentations, including workshops on establishing professional learning communities, providing extra time and support for students, and integrating technology into education.

Noonan earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of New Mexico and completed studies to earn the education specialist designation in educational administration from that institution. He was named a Danforth Scholar at the University of New Mexico. He also completed advanced studies of contemporary British and Shakespearean literature at the University of Essex in England.

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.”

– Alfred Adler

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

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

– Tony Robbins

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.”

– John F. Kennedy

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

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

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

– Thomas Edison

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

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

– Benjamin Franklin

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler

Success is about finding a livelihood that brings joy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of contributing.”

– Anita Roddick

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

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

– Hindu Proverb

Don’t follow your dreams. Chase them.”

– Richard Dumb

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

Look at everything as though you were
seeing it either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”

– Betty Smith

My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

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

– T.S. Eliot

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

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

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”

– Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

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

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

– Christopher Robin to Pooh

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

– August Rush

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

– T.S. Eliot

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

– Jack Kerouac

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

– Steve Jobs

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

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

– Audre Lorde

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

– Charles R. Swindoll

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

– Goldie Hawn

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

To find what you seek in the road of life, leave no stone unturned.”

– Edward Bulwer Lytton

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place.”

– J.J. Van Der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion

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

– Carlos Castaneda

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.”

– Suzy Welch

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

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

– Martha Beck

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

– Joseph Campbell

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

– Christopher Morley