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Recently retired Novi principal reflects on her tenure and future
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NOVI, Mich.-Growing up as the daughter of two educators, teaching was something Jenifer Michos became familiar with very quickly in her life, and the challenges that came with it proved to be too hard to resist. “I loved the challenge of a student that might have been struggling,” said Michos. “When I went to Hope College, I had exceptional teachers and I ate up all of their strategies, and it helped me become empowered to work with kids that had special needs, which is what I did first.”
Now after having been principal of Parkview Elementary in Novi for 16 years before her retirement at the end of this past school year, Michos has meet those challenges and many changes along the way, whether it’d be with students, staff or even the education system itself. “I would say there was a looseness to the system,” said Michos. “Over the years we have become more structured with the laws that have been put in place like No Child Left Behind, and they’ve helped us align with what the current needs are for our students.”
“I think we’ve also made huge improvements in regards to how we look at mental health. That was maybe the most challenging part of being a principle was understanding those complicated issues, but now I think we’re more in tuned with them than ever before.”
No matter what, though, one thing that hadn’t ever changed, according to those who worked with her, was the way the trust and empowerment that she instilled in everyone at Parkview.