Samuetta Hill Drew has consistently shown the essential leadership characteristics needed to ensure academic success for Alabama’s children. This became obvious early in her educational career when she embraced teaching opportunities offered to her at both the elementary and secondary levels.
Ms. Drew was recruited to leadership positions based on her ability to respond to challenges, accomplish goals, and produce results. She began her administrative career as a middle school assistant principal and later was promoted to an elementary school principal. Her leadership resulted in her school being one of only nine out of the then ninety-eight schools to obtain the "academic clear" status by the State Department of Education, as described in the feature story in the June 27, 1997 edition of The Birmingham News. Ms. Drew also initiated many innovative programs. One example was a grant which taught lifelong character education skills through etiquette and was featured by the Associated Press in 1600 newspapers throughout America, CNN Headlines News and ABC Good Morning America.
After she was promoted to the middle school principalship, her leadership maintained the school on the state education department's "academic clear" list. She again developed an innovative program relative to "changing the eating and fitness habits of students," which was featured in the October 1998 edition of Cooking Light Magazine.
In 1998, Ms. Drew was promoted to Central Office as the Senior Executive Director of Area III Schools. Her leadership facilitated the successful closure of three of the twenty-four schools. In June of 2001, she became the first director to have all of her schools rated "academically clear" by the state department of education.
Ms. Drew has served in several supervisory capacities at the central office level. During this time, she led improvement in a number of programs. For example, she converted a failing Adult Education Program to one that received all A’s on the state's report card. In 2003, Ms. Drew was promoted to Human Resource Officer for the district. In this role, she helped implement the district’s Reduction in Force Policy, which resulted in a $20 million dollar cost savings. She also initiated measures to fill the voids in critical need areas, developed a district-wide employee handbook, and instituted an online application tracking system which was adopted by the state. Ms. Drew received a promotion in July of 2006 and is now the Interim Chief of Schools.
Ms. Drew received her undergraduate degree from Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee, and all of her graduate and post graduate work has been completed at the University of Alabama - Birmingham. She is the mother of one daughter and is very active in service to her community, having served on various boards and committees through the years.
