The Honor Role
Meet the people who make Fayette County Public Schools great. Join us as we dive in and learn about their journeys, their inspirations, and their whys on The Honor Role.
The Honor Role
Dr. Monica Reckley
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As principal of Flat Rock Middle, Dr. Monica Reckley inspires her students to take the next step forward.
Congratulations. You made it to the Honor Role. I'm Chris Dunn, and I'll be introducing you to the people who make Fayette County Public Schools excellent. Our district annually ranks among the best in both the state of Georgia and Nation academically, and we want to shine the spotlight on everyone who helps our students thrive. Behind every successful school day is a team of people worthy of recognition, and they each have their own story to tell. Join us as we dive in and learn about their journeys, their inspirations, and their whys on the Honor Role. Welcome to the Honor Role. Please introduce yourself.
ReckleyHello, thanks for having me on the Honor Role. My name is Dr. Monica Harper Reckley. I am principal at the Flat Rock Middle School.
DunnAwesome. Thank you so much for being here. Let's jump in. Tell us a bit about your early life where you grew up in and went to school and all that.
ReckleyAbsolutely. So I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. I was one of five born to a single parent. Mom raised us, and one of the biggest things she instilled in us is a strong work ethic. One of her most famous sayings would be she expected every generation to be better than the previous one. And so that's something that really resonated with me and kind of drove my passion to learn and to grow every day. So I went to a school called Frayser High School. We just celebrated our 25th class reunion, getting old, right? Getting up there. So went to a school that was situated in an impoverished area called Frayser in Memphis, Tennessee. So did a lot of really cool things there, a lot of community service. I was valedictorian of my high school, a little interesting fact. I was also a teen mom. So my oldest child was uh born when I was in high school. So that's another little interesting nugget, and another person who motivated me. Right? So my mom and my son William were some of my primary motivators in my early years. Okay.
DunnSo we'll definitely double back to that. But tell me, when did you know you wanted to work in education?
ReckleyHonestly, Chris, I fought it. I had this insatiable appetite for learning, but I also had a desire to escape poverty. So in my brain, I didn't equate those two things, being an educator and overcoming poverty in the in the same space. So initially I wanted to do some things that society kind of pushed out in the forefront as primary ways to ways to earn money. So I wanted to be an attorney, I wanted to be a medical doctor, things like that. I had to write an essay for my church, for a church scholarship, and it talked about your passion. It talked about what did you feel like God had given you the passion to do. And try as I might, I couldn't go through and give real life examples of why I felt like God wanted me to earn a lot of money, or why I felt like it was in the cards for me to be an attorney or a medical doctor. But every example that I came up with involved me teaching someone how to do something. So whether it was tutoring our key track player to be able to pass, it was a test called um the TCAP back when I was in high school in Tennessee. and if you didn't pass those assessments, you weren't able to graduate, right? And so there were countless examples of me working to help people overcome academic hurdles. Math had always been my forte, and I had the gift to be able to break down calculus in a way that even the most struggling learner would grasp or have confidence in. And so at talking to my pastor and reading the essay, he said, You're gonna be a teacher, and I said, I am not. I went to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and was initially majoring in business, right? because I thought, well, you know what? I can kind of do a compromise with God.
DunnRight.
ReckleySo I can go through, I'll do the educator stuff, but then business was also something that was intriguing to me, but wasn't as intense as maybe pre-law and pre-med options. So I could do business and education simultaneously. And then my plan was to trade off. I would give God five years. I would do education for five years that was also connected to a Tennessee commitment. The state of Tennessee would go through, and if you signed a commitment to teach for five years, then they would go through and give you different funding for your education. So I said, this works out. I can get additional funding and please God at the same time. At the end of that other five years, though, I was so connected to education, and I decided to not leave and instead to go through and to pro to get my doctorate degree to maximize my earning potential in this field. Around the same time, Chris, I realized the joys of parenting. Like I said before, William was one of my motivators and because I was his parent when I was in high school. And so I definitely wanted to be the best human I could be for him. and so I realized that I enjoy parenting, and so now I at that around that time I decided to add to my family. I got married, and then I had Madison, Morgan, and Melena. Being an educator also gives you that the opportunity and honestly some training to be able to maximize your skills as a parent. and so I realized it was kind of a cheat code. I would go in and learn all the foundations of teaching and learning, and then I could go through and effectively be my child, my children's first teacher. So I was knocking multiple birds out with one stone, and that's priceless, right? You can't put a price tag on parenting, it's the most important thing we'll do. And so being an educator allowed me to kind of get a heads up, a leg up in that space as well.
DunnBecause really, I mean it's it's so parallel because obviously, like a a child's best teacher is the people they have at home setting setting examples and teaching lessons, but then a great teacher is someone that sees their student as more than just a student that like makes them feel cared for and loved, and you can kind of bring the love you feel at home into the classroom.
ReckleyYou said a mouthful. that's something that I that I would always tell my students. I want to be the best teacher for you. I want to treat you as if your last name was Reckley.
DunnYeah.
ReckleyRight? So the compassion. Anytime I had to discipline, I would always make sure I disciplined with dignity. if they struggled, I would go through and take my time the same way I did with my at the time young children. And I just kept that philosophy on. Being a parent made me a better teacher. And then being a teacher also made me a better parent. I can remember Morgan one day, I was their assistant principal, and there were students who had gotten in trouble, and I sat down with them and I walked them through exactly what they did wrong and what I wanted them to do, and I retaught the behavior and the expectation. And I can remember Morgan folding her arms saying, Mom, you don't do that at home. I was a little bit more of a feisty parent at home, right? Because I taught them from day one. So I could truly tell my biological children you know better. And when I couldn't do that at school, but when Morgan saw me in action as an assistant principal, it just challenged me to have any more patience, even more patience with my children at home. Because let's let's be honest. Sometimes we can go through and give during during our workday, we can give our best selves to the rest of the world and not always take that home. My children helped me understand, being in the same building with them, helped me understand the importance of always giving your best face to those students you carry, my children at home and those children in school.
DunnAwesome. And so the next question we always ask is who inspired you? Obviously, you spoke about a couple of people that are really important, but please expand on that and then if there are any particular teachers that maybe stuck with you.
ReckleyAbsolutely. So, watching my mom do great things, she grew up in a poor town in Mississippi. So, although, and she leveled up that her idea, her slogan of every generation becoming better, she lived that she embodied it. Although we lived in an area of Memphis, it was much better than the area that she grew up in in Upora, Mississippi. So I would see how she worked. my mom worked at least two jobs and then she worked to go back to school, and she was no nonsense when it came to education. Any mistakes, or not so great things, I hate to even call them mistakes, but any hurdles that she experienced in life, she was very intentional about talking to us about not doing the same thing. You know better now. This is I want you to learn from me. And so she did that with such a mistakes, but lessons. Lessons. I love that, right? She was very strategic about that. And then when I became a teenage mom, she was disappointed, right? But at the same time, she changed her entire work schedule to make sure she was there for William. But she made sure I didn't make the mistake, the I didn't have that same life lesson to learn from, right? And so she was patient and caring, but always teaching.
DunnRight.
ReckleyMonica, look how hard this is. Look, you created an extra hurdle for yourself. You know, why did you do that? She made me think it through, talk about it, and then make a plan. Right? It was always about the plan, the next step, and not living in whatever that lesson was. So that was great. in addition to my mom, Will, was a great inspiration and motivation for me growing up. I wanted him to go through and have more. So it was important for me that he was not a statistic. growing up in Memphis, especially in that area. Unfortunately, a lot of young brown boys didn't have a long life expectancy. Many of them ended up dead or in jail by the time. we we had a higher percentage of people in our community dying or going to jail than we had graduating from high school in their demographic. And so it was important for me to do the best that I could as a mom so that he could beat the odds. and so that that was an inspiration. And then also my teachers. Watching teachers drive from more affluent areas to come into our neighborhood to pour into us was inspiring. Miss Petit, Miss Allen, Miss McDonnell, to name a few, were all pouring into us and they wouldn't take no for an answer. Yeah. I mean, we would come to school maybe hungry or whatever the situation was, they didn't allow that to impact our learning. They cared, but they also told us this can't be your excuse.
DunnRight.
ReckleyThis should be fuel, this should fuel you to work even harder. And so that was special for me as well. So my mom, my son, my teachers were all inspirations. I wanted to be like them when I grew up to change the world. I felt like they they literally changed my world.
DunnRight.
ReckleyAnd I wanted to be able to have a similar impact on hundreds of children as well.
DunnSo all the impact they had on you, you're getting to pay it for it every every day.
ReckleyExponentially, I pray.
DunnYeah. And so then when you became a teacher, you taught math? Mm-hmm. Okay. And so then what made you then want to transition from classroom teacher and administration? Because I think I've only known you since you're in administration.
ReckleyMm-hmm. So, taught in Tennessee for a few years, middle school math. And then when I came here, I love to tell this story. Oatha initially hired me to be a seventh-grade math teacher. I was so excited. He called me back after the interview oatha mann who had been you know, our director of safety prior to his retirement recently. he said, Monica, I have something else for you. Just after the interview, you seem to be able to work with any student. So I want you to work with our most academically challenged scholars who have never passed the at the time we had the CRCT. And I thought, oh wow. I have a surprise for you too. At the time I was about, I think, seven months pregnant with Madison, and I hadn't talked to him about it because I didn't want to risk not being hired because I was pregnant. I said, you know what, Mr. Mann, I will be excited to jump into this challenge and roll. And guess what? I'm pregnant. And so we we both joke about dropping new bombshells on each other during that summer prior to my first year here in Fayette County. So that was 2008. So I came to Flat Rock, loved it, love the seat that Mr. Mann pulled me in. More than 50% of my kids, 100% of them show growth, and more than 50% of them ended up going through jumping up one or two levels of mastery. So I was super excited about it and I just wanted to keep getting better. And he came and said, guess what? I'm moving you now to the high stakes eighth grade math teacher. I want you to do what you did with those students with with a bigger group of children, and so I was honored to move there. I ended up working with some amazing educators to lay the seeds or for the STEAM program here in Flat Rock Middle School. So I loved it. But as I mentioned before, I wanted to maximize my earning potential in the field of education. So I started my doctorate degree almost simultaneous with my career here in Fayette County. So I had during the time that I worked in my doctorate degree, I gave birth to all three of my girls. and so and I also worked here full-time at Flat Rock Middle School. After I was done, Mr. Mann challenged me. He said, Okay, you now have your leadership credentials. Are you going to start applying? I said, you know, I do the admin internship. So I applied, went through, loved it, learned a lot under Raybold, YBJ, some of the Steve Cole, some of the amazing administrators, like people who ended up moving up to district office and doing great things. So I learned from the best doing my admin internship, but I also felt like my time wasn't done in the classroom. I'm a really, really good math teacher. And so I enjoyed seeing the aha moments on kids' faces, and I wasn't so sure if I would be able to have that same job satisfaction as an administrator. So initially, although I had my credentials, I didn't leave the classroom. Around that same time, my son William had gotten a full athletic scholarship to Tulane University. And so I was I like my summers. I like the opportunity to travel to see him down in New Orleans, and I wasn't ready to give that up either. Mr. Mann ended up, as you can see, I say his name a lot. I talked to you about some people who motivated me early in my career. the middle portion of my career, I would definitely have to give credit to Oatha. because he allowed me to go through and do some out-of-the-box things in the classroom. I would keep kids at lunch. I'd come early, stay late. Like I said, we talked about the steam program. We had steam symposiums. We I would go on field trips. Mark Henderson would drive buses for me. We did all sorts of crazy things to get kids to learn.
DunnYou had the USDA visit the garden down here.
ReckleyThat's it. Isn't that wild? and so he gave me room to grow, but he'd also tell me, similar to my mom, when I failed, because that's a part of it, right? We have to fail forward. He never made me feel bad about any lesson, any issue that I had. He would say, Okay, what'd you learn from it? And what are you gonna do next? That was so empowering. that I would take risks for kids. I would take risks to really level up the learning that was taking place here in this building. And so watching him lead was motivating and made me feel like, okay, Monica, you can have the opportunity to impact both adults and children. So I got the leadership bite even more from him. But when he got, he was over at North Fayette, he actually left Flat Rock, went to North Fayette and was serving as principal. And when his assistant principal was leaving, and I saw the job posted, I said, man, it'd be really great to work and to continue to learn from such an awesome leader. and so I applied for the job. Probably one of, not probably, it was by far the hardest interview I had. And Dr. Patterson's a pretty tough superintendent to interview with, but Dr. Barrow was as well, and he just told me like it was about some different things that he was expecting. He saw me as a secondary leader, not as an elementary school leader. I mean, I'll be honest, as Morgan said when she saw me interacting with other students, mom, you're pretty tough, you know? And so I was tough. My expectations were really high. And so he challenged me. He said, Reckley, if you go there, you're gonna have to tone it down some, and you're gonna have to, you know, bring some of that passion. Elementary students really don't know better. So you can't say you know better when you get there. So take that out of your vocabulary. So after a couple of rounds of interviewing with Dr. Barrow, Kim Herring, Oatha Mann, I was able to get the position and I was determined not to prove to not to let them down, right? and to prove to them that I could do it, that I was worth the risk that they took by putting a secondary person who had never taught one day in an elementary school in that leadership spot. It was it's different. right away. There were kids who weren't potty trained.
DunnYeah.
ReckleyWe have pre-K programs, and so I had to go in and really change a lot about the way I led. As an assistant principal, as a principal, you're still an educator. You go in and it is your job to make sure that you're not only teaching the students, but now you're teaching teachers. You teach your parents, you are absolutely doing doing that. And so going in, I had to change a lot and I learned so much. I only worked with Oatha in that space for a year, but Ms. Bolton was also my mentor who had come in to be leader here at Flat Rock. So I tapped into both of them to learn. Mr. Mann had come from secondary into elementary, and Ms. Bolton had spent a bulk of her career up until that point in elementary school. So I just tapped into my local resources to to really learn as much as I could from those awesome examples.
DunnYeah.
ReckleyAnd I modeled the way they led for my teachers and for the students and for the parents at North Fayette. And then I was blessed to be able to have the opportunity to have my first principalship at Fayetteville Elementary School. By that time I had the elementary principal leadership thing, a better grasp on it, and I had a blast at FES. It's a special place. Both schools, or all of the schools that I've been in in Fayette County are Title I schools. And so, in addition to having amazing, very affluent families, we have some hardships. There's some parents who are just like other schools are homeless or who have financial struggles, but there's a larger percentage in Title I schools. And so I enjoyed that challenge. It also made me feel like I was paying it forward. All the different lessons that I learned from my days of growing up in poverty, I felt like I could also relate to the to the students and parents. I can remember one of my parents at FES, where she was telling me about a situation that she was going through, and I said, I can relate. And she said, No, you can't. Here you are doctorate, and you have these degrees, and you know, you have this earning potential. I said, Oh, but I can relate. And so going back and being able to use those lessons that we talked about that my mom helped me always overcome and level up from. I use those lessons to also empower parents and to take honestly excuses out of their arsenal. There's very little. I tell them, God has given me lots of tests, which have given me a testimony. It's hard to kind of out backstory me. and I think that also makes me a great leader. I hear, I understand, but I know we can keep getting better and better and better. And that's whatever level or whatever type of person that I'm leading in that moment.
DunnYeah, because really at its foundation for the school, it's every student, whether their parent, they have two parents that are, you know, big business executives, or maybe it's a single parent household, they deserve that same access to the great education we have here in the county.
ReckleyAnd that's the beauty of public education. That's also why, Chris, I have never had the desire to go into the the private setting. Because I think what we do in public education is a great equalizer. We go through and we give everybody an opportunity to be better. Everyone an opportunity, it doesn't matter where they come in. They come into kindergarten already reading, already advanced, wherever their home life is like, if they have a nanny or if they have two working parents and they're working to honestly kind of raise themselves, we give them a remarkable eight-hour experience when they're in the building with us. that honestly it's unparalleled. And and I accept that challenge and I go through and try to live up to all of my role models and inspirations each day.
DunnThat's awesome. And so we've certainly talked a ton about your academic career and all, but when I first got to know about your family was with your son Will as a football player, and then we kind of reconnected later when I got to know you through your daughters playing basketball. So is your whole family athletic?
ReckleyI will say, they they are all competitors, and I think that comes from a lot from me, but also from Johan, the dad. and we we are, we like to win, and we have our a super strong work ethic. So, like I said, Will blessed us, was able to go to Tulane Division I school. He was a three-year starter. Back in the day, you created that amazing cartoon character of him, which was fun. we still have that on the wall at home. And then fast forward 10 years later, right? There's a 10-year gap between William and the next child. And I'm blessed that they... it was important. I think you learn so much from athletics, right? I was an athlete, nowhere near the type of athlete that my children are. But you learn how to lose. You learn how to win with dignity and grace, you learn how to help people, you have to break things down, you work with people who are better than you, who have more skill set, and then those with less skill set, and you have to bring it all together and put on a performance. And you do it again and again and again. And so it enables you to sharpen the saw, that level up attitude and mentality. And so it's important. All of my children had to go through and play at least one sport. Will ended up, he was a really good basketball player, but football was was his main sport. Madison liked to dance initially, and so her recent accolade of being on the Bahamian basketball women's team, she probably wouldn't have predicted that for herself back when she was young because she wanted to cheer, she wanted to dance. She's definitely the girliest of my crew, and so she didn't envision herself doing that. Morgan has always loved basketball. Before she could even hold one, she was trying to dribble it. Well, Morgan , we were down a player for one of our recreation teams, and we needed somebody who was under 10 who could commit to being at the basketball game. Well, I had another one of those in my home. So we tagged Madison in, and Madison was right off an amazing defensive player. She had to work harder for the offensive performance, but she was deep, she wanted to win.
DunnYeah.
ReckleyAnd so she could take the ball from the other players. She would stand in front of them, wave her hands from the moment she stepped on the court. So she too is a fantastic basketball player who has multiple Division I scholarship offers. So we're excited about that for Madison. And then Morgan, like I said, loved basketball before she could walk it. Many have deemed her as a basketball prodigy. Morgan just earned her second gold medal for the United States FIBA youth team. And we're super excited about that. So you 16, and then now you 17. the medals are heavy, they're really cool to have. so I'm excited about that opportunity. And then Melena, the last of the Reckley bunch, is a cheerleader. And Madison was like, that's not fair. How does she get to cheer all the way through? a freshman at Sandy Creek, and she made their JV cheer squad. So I'm super proud of Melena.
DunnAnd she's playing the most dangerous sport of all.
ReckleyI'm telling you. And the most expensive, I will venture to say. Those cheer fees are absolutely no joke, but they're worth it because those bows are adorable, right? And all the other gear that they end up with. Melena also brings a special touch to our family. She's she's a last girl, but she's also the most compassionate, and she gets us all together. So anytime anyone thinks about getting out of character, she's the one that that kind of is that glue to cheer us on, literally and figuratively, to get it back together.
DunnSo did you play sports growing up? What did you what were your a kid.
Reckleyanother interesting tidbit. The year that I was pregnant with William, I was actually also athlete of the year in my high school. I ran cross-country. Okay. I played volleyball, I played basketball, and ran track. So I almost made it through the track season, but not so much that school year. But I love sports. And again, the opportunity to be on the team. There's so many lessons. And because I liked academics, equally as much, probably I would say academics more, so right. I love reading, I love learning. But I was able to go through and be like that example on the on the teams to let people know you don't have to choose. You don't have to choose whether to be a strong student academically or athletically. The best in either of those areas can do both.
DunnRight.
ReckleyRight? And when you can go through and relate to all types of people and talents, you're able to go through and and be a best member on either an academic team or an athletic one.
DunnAnd when they take care of both, like your kids, then they get amazing opportunities. Absolutely. Will got a college football scholarship, and then your daughters are getting to literally travel the world to play basketball.
ReckleyThat's right. Madison was in Nicaragua. Morgan has gone to Mexico and . And it's really cool when you can travel on somebody else's dime too, right?
DunnThat's right. And usually the question I would ask next next is when you're not busy with work, what are your hobbies? But like it's pretty much right now, it's probably keeping up with your kids, basically.
ReckleyIt is, I am their biggest fan. I enjoy, similar to Melena, cheering them on, but also being there to make sure that I support them in staying humble and always remembering to prioritize academics. Because if all you know is athletics, or if that's your your your only focus, then you'll go through and fall into their statistics that I've worked hard to not let them end up in. You'll end up back in poverty, right? You'll end up back in this space. I want them to be good citizens of their immediate community and of the world, to be able to see any person and help that person be better, to be a role model for everyone that they encounter. so that's important to me that they're learning that. So I want to be a part of that journey. And I want to kind of be right there in their back pocket or on their little shoulder, reminding them to keep working hard, to never quit, to not let in. I like to tell them, make the next play the next the best play, right? Make that next play the best play, and that's applicable in all things. Madison's going to be a , right? She loves basketball and she's gonna allow basketball to take her as far as it can, as long as it can, but she wants to help people in the medical field. I love that about her. Morgan is gonna let basketball take her. She's gonna her goals include playing in the WNBA after becoming a McDonald's All-American, winning a championship in Sandy Creek. Her her to-do list is pretty long.
DunnRight.
Reckleythen she wants to go and be an accountant in her dad's firm and or be an attorney, maybe a tax attorney. So that's great that my scholars want to do that. Milena's gonna be a vet, and Will's going through continuing to be, he majored in public relations. And so he's doing different things with social media, doing different things with political marketing and all sorts of amazing things. So I mean he's networking with a lot of the people that he met through football. Right. So it's awesome to see my kids not choosing academics or athletics, but going through marrying the two and maximizing their potential.
DunnThat's awesome. And so how we like to close every episode, and we certainly touched on it, but what is your why?
ReckleyYeah. my why, I feel like God inspired me to, He made me to be an educator. But not just to go through and to teach math, but to go through and to teach our scholars how to persevere, how to be resilient, no matter what the world throws their way. And so I enjoy doing that every day. And it can get tough, Chris, continuing to do that while parenting, because that's hands down the most important job that God has given me. But I don't have to choose. Just like my children don't have to choose, I work hard to be the best parent, the best principal, the best that I can be. And so I'm very inspired to go through and to change the world one child at a time, like Flat Rock Middle School's mission is.
Speaker 1Speaker 1
Dunn
Thank you so much for talking with us.
ReckleyThank you so much for having me here on the Honor Role.
DunnThis has been an official podcast of Fayette County Public Schools. for more stories from our district, visit us on fcboe.org, where you can also find links to our social media channels. If you know someone you would like to see featured on a future episode, email us at dunn.chris@ fcboe.org. And don't forget to like and subscribe. Thank you for joining us on the Honor Role, class dismissed.