Every public school in the county was empty Monday morning, but that’s not to say teachers and employees weren’t preparing for the first day of school.

A system-wide meeting at Springfield Baptist Church brought Newton County School System teachers, administrators, bus drivers and all other employees together for a speech many attendees said was the best they had ever heard.
Dr. Adolph Brown, who, at 29, is one of the youngest tenured professors in the country, gave a speech about helping students succeed and about not judging people based on appearances.

When Brown was 11, his only brother and oldest sibling was murdered. He met his father for the first time when he was 18, and he grew up in a single-parent housing project. He became the first in a family of five to graduate high school and is now a professor at Hampton University and is the founder, president and CEO of The Leadership & Learning Institute.

“He taught that every child can succeed,” said Lee Peck, NCSS director of elementary curriculum, “and told us to look at the potential (of each child).”