IPSWICH — When Cheryl Forster took over the reins at Ipswich Middle School 13 years ago, then-Superintendent Dick Thompson dragged her to the job kicking and screaming.
The school was in turmoil and had churned through three principals in four years.
Besides, Forster already had a job she loved, coordinating technology at the school.
"I didn't want to do it. I told him, 'You can't make me do it,'" Forster recalled.
Eventually, she relented, a bit, agreeing to take the job for a month while Thompson sought a full-time replacement.
"Never in a million years, if you had told me 20 years ago I'd be doing this today, would I have believed you," she said.
She probably wouldn't have believed she would be named the state's Middle School Principal of the Year, either, but that's just what happened recently.
The honor comes from the Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators Association. Each year, it selects a high school and middle school principal and an assistant principal for the award, which is sponsored by MetLife.
Connie Hambley, a middle school parent, wrote a letter of recommendation that accompanied Forster's nomination for the award.
"Cheryl's leadership helps teachers and students take the next step to excellence," she said this week.
Hambley, who lives in Rowley, was an apt choice for a recommendation. She lives in Rowley and was active at Pine Grove Elementary and the Triton Regional School District. She was even elected to the Triton School Committee, but two years ago decided to enroll her three kids in Ipswich schools.
In large part, her decision was triggered by concerns about her son, Ryder, who was entering seventh grade. He was an "edgy kid," as Hambley put it, and at risk of making bad decisions. And he was opposed to transferring to Ipswich.
"Cheryl was right there," Hambley said. "I never felt more supported."
'The people business'
Forster immediately formed a team of volunteer teachers and administrators to act as a support group for Ryder during his transition.
"We're in the people business, so it's second nature," Forster said. "That's not the case everywhere."
Today, Ryder is on the honor roll and plays bass in the jazz band.
"He's not afraid to be smart," Hambley said.
The judges who pick principals of the year weigh leadership qualities heavily, and Forster wasn't afraid to step to the forefront even before she became a principal.
Her earliest involvement with the town's schools was as a protester, when the School Committee decided to close the old Shatswell School on Green Street some 30 years ago.
"I didn't want to lose my neighborhood school," she said.
She did lose it, but rather than withdrawing, she got even more involved in the schools. Together with Meredith Joss, who has been Forster's assistant principal for 11 years, she established the Friends of Ipswich Elementary Schools, the parent support group that still raises money for the town's two elementary schools 28 years later.
Putting kids first
Forster, 59, has spent all but one year of her teaching career in the Ipswich school system. By January of that first year on the job at the middle school, she was feeling a little differently about it.
"By spring, I was loving it," she said.
Forster believes in student-centered education and strives for that goal constantly.
"We have to put kids first," she said. "We sometimes forget why we're here."
Superintendent Rick Korb said Forster's energy, commitment and dedication to every student make her stand out.
"It's not a job to her, it's a passion," Korb said.
As part of her award, Forster will attend an all-expenses-paid, three-day conference of secondary school administrators in Washington, D.C., next month, and be entered in the national competition for the principal of the year award.
In July, she'll also be honored at a four-day conference in Falmouth.
"Middle schools are more than just faculty and students," Hambley said. "Cheryl makes the pieces more than the total."
Forster said she can only do that one kid at a time.
"This is a school where students feel people care about them," she said. "Honestly, that's the way it should be everywhere. This is not a place where you should feel nameless or faceless."
