Just three years ago, Normal West’s former associate principal rose up and took the position of principal.
Across these three years, Dr. Angie Codron has overseen West through it all: updating the building, long meetings, and much more.
Codron’s leadership skills have now been recognized not just by students or staff, but by an organization called Golden Apple after being nominated for the Excellence in Leadership award.
Codron does not know who nominated her, but out of the hundreds of other nominees, she is one of the seven finalists for the Golden Apple award.
“[It is the] excellence in leadership award (…). You get an email that says ‘you were nominated for this,’ [there’s] questions that you have to answer [provide evidence for your answers] of how you meet those things, they review it, and then you get notified if you’re one of the finalists or not,” Codron explained.
Now, the drive to become the winner is one of Codron’s top priorities, with the Golden Apple organization leading her through a series of essays and further interviews.
Providing evidence of her leadership in the community wasn’t a difficult task; in the essays, she provided various ways she works to be a strong leader for her school.
In her essays, she shared her personal mission statement, part of which is “be the difference that people need when they need it.”
“Because I think a lot of things can come at you as the leader of the school, and so you have to prioritize who do I have to go talk to now? Who can I respond to later? And what’s a bigger picture that I need to include other people to make a long term improvement?” Codron noted.
The next part of her mission statement is to “leave things better than [she] found them.”
She believes in continuous improvement and knows that she can’t achieve everything alone.
“My third part is just to never stop teaching and coaching. That’s a piece that I tend to live by,” Codron stated.
Codron continues to use her experience from teaching and coaching, and gives credit to that helping her with her leadership as a principal.
“I teach someone or coach someone on something every day. It’s just not chemistry and basketball, “ Codron shared.
“I like to think that leaders put other people in leadership positions,” Codron added.
Codron’s influence on the halls of Normal West has not gone unnoticed by representatives for the Golden Apple organization, who spent a day in the building asking others about Codron’s leadership.
“The 7 finalists have a site visit, where Golden Apple representatives come to meet with a panel of students, staff, our administrative team, and myself [to do] an informal walkthrough through the cafeteria or a common space,” Codron stated.
On Saturday, April 18, Codron and the other finalists will attend the Golden Apple banquet, where the winner will be announced.
Along with the honor, the winner will also receive prize money, which Codron would like to put towards an ongoing project West is working on: the atrium renovation, soon to make the space the ‘Crabtree Commons,’ named after the school’s first principal.
“There’s a $5000 stipend that goes toward the school, and then there’s a $5000 stipend that the award winner gets personally. The $5000 would go toward our atrium project that we’ve talked about with Crabtree Commons,” explained Codron.
But for Codron, this is not about the recognition of her leadership.
Instead, she’s looking at the bigger picture for the school.
“I don’t think that we lead because we get an award for it, right? I think it’s an honor for Normal West to have some positive recognition for what we do here, for sure,” Codron added.
For more information on this award as well as other finalists, visit this press release from goldenapple.org
