Kathy Bryant Named Principal at DCHS

Kathy Bryant has been named principal at DCHS.
Director of Schools Patrick Cripps made the announcement Tuesday. “She is a very intelligent, hard working individual. She has brought a lot to DeKalb County High School already. She has the respect of the teachers and she will take it another step. I have all the confidence in the world in her,” Cripps told WJLE Tuesday.
Bryant, who has served as assistant principal at DCHS for three years, succeeds Cripps, who was recently hired by the Board of Education as the Director of Schools.
“I’m humbled and I am excited. Mr. Cripps, Mr. (David) Gash, and myself we had a good thing at DeKalb County High School and I want to keep that same momentum. I’ve got big shoes to fill from Mr. Cripps. We’re just going to keep forging on. This has really become a good place to work and learn. We want students to keep being successful. We want to offer lots of programs for students that need to be challenged and students that need extra help too,” said Bryant in an interview with WJLE Tuesday.
After earning her B.S. degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at Middle Tennessee State University in 1996, Bryant received a Masters Degree in Instructional Leadership at Tennessee Tech in 2008 and then an Ed.S. degree in Instructional Leadership at Tennessee Tech in 2010. She is now starting her fourth semester working on a Doctorate Degree from East Tennessee State University.
Bryant began her teaching career in 1996 at Coffee County’s Hillsboro Elementary School and at North Coffee Elementary School. “My first job was in Coffee County. I taught at two different schools. I taught third grade and fifth grade Title I Reading and Math. My days were split. I would travel at lunch to a different school. My second year I was also at Coffee County and I taught fourth grade permanently at one of the schools where I was teaching,” she said.
Bryant then located to Memphis where she taught at Brookmead Elementary School before becoming director of the Sylvan Learning Center in Memphis. “I moved to Memphis. I met my husband. He was from Memphis. I taught half a year at Brookmead Elementary and then in January I was asked to be the Director of Sylvan Learning Center so I took that position. Then I came back home in 1999. I wanted to start a family. I taught fifth grade and then I moved to fourth grade at Northside Elementary School before becoming Assistant Principal at DeKalb Middle School in 2011,” said Bryant.
A year later, she went to DCHS to become an Assistant Principal along with Assistant Principal David Gash and Principal Patrick Cripps.
Bryant and her husband Neal are the parents of three sons, including a soon to be freshman at DCHS, a second grader at Smithville Elementary, and a four year old who will be in kindergarten next year. “I come from a family of educators. My grandmother was a teacher. My great grandmother was a teacher. Of course my dad (Aubrey Turner, Jr.) was an educator. He was Director of Schools here for sixteen years,” she said.
Bryant is the 11th principal at DCHS since 1963. Her predecessors are Amon Snyder, Jim Butler, Tucker Hendrix, Ernest Ray, Dr. Charles Collier, Larry Johnson, Dr. Barry Roberts, Weldon Parkinson, Kathy Hendrix, and Patrick Cripps.