Palo Alto High School Principal Sandra Pearson married Scott Pearson in northern Nigeria while the pair taught in the Peace Corps in 1962. Now she and her husband lead international trips for the Stanford Travel/Study Program.
Palo Alto High principal ends one tour, starts another
AFTER LEADING SCHOOL IN TOUGH TIMES, SHE'LL BE SHEPHERDING TOUR GROUPS
By Nicole C. Wong
Mercury News
Palo Alto High School Principal Sandra Pearson raised only two children, but over the past 30 years hundreds of her school students and elderly tour group travelers also have called her ``mom.''
``It was because she loved us so much and was so good to us and so important in our lives,'' said Robie Livingstone, who as a seventh-grader signed up for Pearson's drama class in the 1981.
Thursday was her last day of school, and she heads into retirement.
Pearson's nurturing instincts have earned her the gratitude of Palo Alto High School, where as interim principal over the past two years she has shepherded the school through the pain of two student suicides and other crises. The 64-year-old, who also served as principal from 1987 to 1994, says she will now spend more time leading globe-trotting tour groups, a passion she abandoned when duty called her out of retirement.
Originally, Pearson agreed to serve as principal for only the fall semester in 2002, while the district sought a permanent replacement for departing Principal Fred Dreier. But she accepted an additional 1 1/2-year term so that the district would have more time to find a high-quality candidate, and she could help the school community heal from a recent student suicide.
More tragedy followed. A senior was convicted in a fatal hit-and-run accident, and a second student took his own life. Pearson reassured students that they could get through the difficult times, and consulted experts on ways to ease student anxiety.
Ben Stolpa, the father of three Palo Alto High graduates, dropped off a fruit basket for the staff Thursday, the last day of school. When he ran into Pearson in the hall, he shook her hand and hugged her.
``There were crises in our lives you people helped us through,'' Stolpa said in a wavering voice. The school ``needed you so badly when you came. You did it all.''
Pearson has a way of connecting with people in a crowd. At a Palo Alto High football game last year, she mentioned to someone nearby that Tolu Wusu was a great player.
Nigerian link
Omobola Wusu, who emigrated from Nigeria two decades ago, was watching her son play when she overheard Pearson praise his performance. Wusu turned around and met Pearson, who mentioned that she had married Scott Pearson in northern Nigeria while the pair taught in the Peace Corps in 1962.
Upon discovering that Pearson wanted to return on a wedding anniversary trip, Wusu said, ``We could all go together!''
``It would be a fun trip,'' Wusu said this week. ``She's a very nice lady. She's motherly -- grandmotherly -- to the children.''
As a girl growing up in Austin, Minn., Pearson fancied the trains that rumbled past her small town as a path to adventure and excitement. But now, the grandmother of three has outgrown trains.
In December, she and her husband will lead a worldwide tour for $43,000 a person. It will touch down in exotic spots on every continent except Antarctica, by way of a private jet.
The couple have also led international trips for the Stanford Travel/Study Program for the past three years. Her husband, a retired Stanford professor, is the tour lecturer -- she's the tour manager.
``I like to be in charge,'' Pearson chuckled.
Each trip's 30 to 40 travelers -- often doctors, attorneys and entrepreneurs who are 50 to 70 years old -- like it that way, too. Several have taken to calling her ``Mom,'' a nickname she earned during her days as a middle-school teacher.
Pearson helps them exchange currency and find Internet cafes. She checks on them after they go to bed, makes sure they're awake if they don't show up for breakfast, and tells them to call her in the middle of the night if they aren't feeling well.
It's that motherly instinct again.
The other part of her personality that shines through on her travels is her passion for education.
When the Pearsons travel, they often visit schools -- and they're rarely empty-handed. They have packed picture books, paperback dictionaries, pens, pencils and soap bubbles for students at village schools in Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania and Nepal.
After the couple met a villager in Guilin, China who taught herself English by following tourists, they sent her son boxes of books including one of Sandra Pearson's favorite picture books, ``Goodnight, Moon.''
Views classrooms
Pearson said that peeks inside faraway classrooms, including an Ethiopian high school and a Cambodian university, have ``given me a good perspective on the importance of education.'' She keeps travel scrapbooks that include photos of principals' offices and students she has met around the world.
In the photos, some students sit on dirt floors, beneath broken thatched roofs. They crowd in, almost sitting on top of each other.
When she visited Beijing in 1997, Pearson spotted a public high school down the street from where they were staying. Curious about the class sizes, classroom amenities and teaching style, she showed up at the school and flashed a business card identifying her as a principal. ``It meant nothing,'' said Pearson, who never got to see what was inside the school.
On that same trip, Pearson was trekking through Nepal with her husband and six friends when she spotted a little building in the middle of a field. She checked with the sherpa, and sure enough, it was a schoolhouse.
``No one wanted to go'' see it, Pearson said, ``but I made them.''
The group found a young teacher overseeing all three rooms full of little boys.
``We went in and gave English lessons. We sang songs,'' like `Itsy Bitsy Spider,' for a few hours, she said. ``It was a ball.''
Contact Nicole C. Wong at nwong@mercurynews.com or (650) 688-7587.
