After nearly 14 years with the school district, both as a third-grade teacher and for the past four years as an administrator, Camp Verde Elementary School Principal Britta Booth is retiring at the end of this year.
“This is a great place to work, it’s been an incredible opportunity,” Booth said. “I’ve loved teaching here and I loved being principal here. The people who work here are so dedicated. Teachers really don’t get credit they deserve anymore, which is frustrating for them and frustrating for me to see for them. I’m going to miss people and I’m going to definitely miss the kids.”
Booth is not entering full retirement, but is rather transitioning to focusing on assisting her husband’s home remodeling business and working on other projects as well. She felt that, with her two-year contract up for renewal, it was best to leave now rather than possibly break the contract later down the line.
“It’s been a huge part of my life and a really big honor working here,” Booth said. “There are people and events that I will miss dearly, but I plan on volunteering. I plan on coming back and subbing on occasion. I’m not disappearing from the whole thing. But it’s a big change, and I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I’ve really loved being here.”
Camp Verde Unified School District Administrator-In-Charge Danny Howe spoke highly of his colleague, who taught his own child.
“She cares about the kids,” Howe said. “She taught my youngest son in third grade, so I can speak from experience. He enjoyed her class, she enjoyed him. The whole thing about wanting the kids to be successful — she cared about the school. She cared about the community. As a principal, she backed her teachers.”
But Howe is already in the midst of the process of finding a replacement. The school district has whittled down 12 applicants to a shortlist of seven and is in the process of interviewing them this week to find a replacement. Howe has formed a committee of staff to assess the hopes to be able to present a choice to the Camp Verde Unified School District Governing Board by their meeting on May 14, with the new applicant taking over by July 1.
Of the seven finalists, six are candidates from outside the school district, while one is a potential internal promotion. Howe laments that, without Booth, a new principal will not have her experience.
“There’s a loss in the simple fact that she’s been around,” Howe said of Booth. “She wasn’t just a one- or two-year teacher who came in, became and principal a couple of years and then leaves. She knew the community. She knew Camp Verde. She knew the people. She knew the system. Those are all things that only a person who stays in the district a while with longevity has. You can’t go to school and learn those things. So, it’s hard if you’re looking for someone to replace, if you don’t replace someone with longevity from within, then you’re hiring somebody from the outside that doesn’t know the community, doesn’t know the teachers within the school, doesn’t know the kids. And that’s not a bad thing, but it’s definitely a change. That’s what we lose. She knew the kids, she knew her teachers, she knew the parents.”
“I think when I came in there had been some turnover, and it was a time of high stress for a lot of teachers,” Booth said. “I came in and because they knew me, they knew who I was, they knew my intentions and they knew how much I cared about them and about the kids. We were able to take a deep breath and move forward pretty quickly with getting ourselves back into a positive frame of mind.”
Howe, nevertheless, sees a hopeful future in hiring a new principal for the school.
“Sure, I’m sad, but I also look at it as an opportunity,” Howe said. “All of us are looking at it as an opportunity now. What do we want to look for? What can we do? Now we have a chance to go out there and maybe look for something that somebody else can bring to the district. New ideas, those kind of things — it’s just an opportunity.”
“I think the number one quality of anyone working in any job in a school district is that they have a heart for the kids, that their goal is to make sure that the kids are happy and healthy and cared for, and that their best interest is their top priority,” Booth said.
