Barfield Elementary School
Third Place, Middle Division, Elementary Schools

Judy Goodwin, Principal
350 Barfield Crescent Road
Murfreesboro, TN 37128
Rutherford County Schools
http://www.bar.rcs.k12.tn.us/

Recipe For Success:

Some things just have to be seen and experienced to understand why Barfield students are so successful.  We invite folks to come and see for themselves!

Surrounding our students with the most positive, skilled, and caring staff possible has always been a priority for me as their principal.  While every school has its own feel and culture, a tremendous amount of thought and structure has been put in place at Barfield to provide a safe, friendly, nurturing, motivating learning environment for our students.  Everyone plays a part in maintaining this positive atmosphere. Expectations are very clear in this regard.

It takes everyone being committed to helping every student to achieve the highest possible level of success, regardless of where the starting point of learning may be or what seeming obstacles might stand in the way.  A network of people support students on their academic, social, and emotional paths.  Because we function as a professional learning community, much collaboration, discussion, and decision-making occurs to provide the best plan for each child with each stakeholder's role clearly defined and communicated to ensure that the plan is followed. This award has been made possible by the commitment of time, knowledge, experience and resources by administration, teachers, support staff, parents, the community, and the Rutherford County School Board.  It also helps to have great kids who love learning and day-end-and-day-out do everything they can to be good citizens! I often say that the least of what we do is to develop decent, responsible, respectful human beings, and I think that we are definitely doing that at Barfield Elementary School!

Where do we go from here? We look at why we've been so successful; have the wisdom to make changes as needed when something no longer works; celebrate our achievements; and continue to look for ways to do it better.  Nothing breeds success like success.  We never want to reach a comfort level that causes us to stop learning and growing, whether as a school or as individuals.