“It’s the inner strength inside of me that said ‘you can do this,’” Said South’s interim principal Dr. Willarene Beasley as she stood in front of  twenty or so parents and students this past Monday, February 10th. Because of February being Black History Month, South had a National African American Parent Involvement Day, or NAAPID, This Monday.

The day centered around student’s parents and guardians coming to school and shadowing their kids. From 8:30 to 10:30 parents and guardians were served a continental breakfast before they began going to their students classes until noon. Then parents and students met in the media center for a luncheon hosted by South’s UMOJA student group. While eating lunch Dr. Beasley spoke to students and parents on the importance of parent involvement in their children’s education and  the importance of student’s  effort while at school and in class.

“You have the key,” said Beasley, “If you have the right spirit, the right attitude, people will help you.” Beasley played a documentary on her, made after NFL player Alan Page, previous Vikings and Chicago Bears player, picked her as a partner when in a parade for being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In the film he said he picked her “because of her work with underprivileged youth and inequalities in education.”

During the documentary she was interviewed as a principal of North High School in Minneapolis, where she  focused on changing it into a specialized magnet school, created a strong science program called Sumatech and was an overall “strict principal.” As a result she increased the low rate of  North students going on to college to more than sixty percent  before she retired.

After the documentary Beasley spoke to parents and students  on the importance of a good education and recited Langston Hughes’ poem ‘Mother to Son.’  Beasley ended with saying that life, in specific school, will seem difficult but we can never give up and “all the time we have to keep climbing.”