Dr. Torian White will leave Southeast Bulloch Middle School this summer to become principal of South Effingham High School, where he graduated at the head of his class in 1999.
After five years, White leaves the school at a pinnacle, as the Bulloch County School system’s highest performing school in 2018 on Georgia’s College and Career Ready Performance Index, or CCRPI, and recipient of multiple recent state awards.
“Actually I had every intention to remain at Southeast Bulloch Middle School because of the great work that’s going on here,” White said Friday. “We have some great momentum here with our students, staff and community.”
But when the job of principal at his high school alma mater became available, he “took a leap of faith” and applied, he said.
Celebrated teacher
Meanwhile, his wife, Tasheina Canty White, is pre-designated 2020 Bulloch County Teacher of the Year and will continue at Brooklet Elementary School as music teacher and director of the school’s vibrant chorus. She is a Statesboro High alumna.
“So for us as a couple, we have the unique opportunity to both serve in the districts where we are from, and so we count that as a real blessing,” he said.
In either of the neighbor counties, the Whites’ sons, Tyler and Trenton – who were both in the BES Chorus this school year under their mother’s direction – have grandparents nearby. Her parents, James and Cynthia Canty, are lifelong Bulloch County residents, and Mrs. Canty is also a Brooklet Elementary teacher. The principal’s parents, the Rev. Delmons and Herlene White, reside in Effingham but are active at Mount Olive Baptist Church, where the Rev. White is pastor, in Bulloch’s Nevils community.
A new school then
After completing ninth grade at Effingham County High, previously that county system’s only high school, Torian White arrived at South Effingham High as a 10th-grader in 1996, the year the school opened.
“The history of that school is very important to me, because I was a part of that history,” he said, “and so to have that opportunity to go back to that community and serve as principal, it’s exciting, it’s humbling and it’s gratifying.”
Not only did White graduate as South Effingham’s 1999 valedictorian, he served as class president all four years of high school. He was also one of the first two drum majors for the then-new Marching Mustangs band his sophomore year and the only drum major his junior and senior years.
He attained his bachelor's degree in math education from the University of Georgia, a master's degree from Troy University and an education specialist degree from Cambridge College. He received his doctorate, a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction, from Mercer University.
White, who is now completing his 16th year as an educator, spent the first 10 years in Rockdale County, where he started as a high school math teacher. He served as an assistant principal at two high schools before being promoted to principal of Conyers Middle School in 2012.
Success at SEBMS
He came to Bulloch County as SEB Middle principal, starting July 1, 2014.
Now White gets to return, as principal, to the high school that launched him. South Effingham High has about 1,650 students, making it almost identical in size to Statesboro High.
“It is bittersweet, though, because when you’re in a community for five years and you’re working with teachers and students and parents you build really strong relationships,” White said of SEB Middle. “It’s like a family here, when you’ve shared in some of the highs and lows of schooling for five years.”
Among the highs, for 2018, SEBMS was recognized by the Georgia Department of Education as a Title I Distinguished School. These are the top 5 percent, in student performance, of schools statewide qualifying for Title I funding.
Also in 2018, the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement presented SEBMS a Silver Award for greatest gains. The only Bulloch County school to receive these recognitions in 2018, SEBMS had received a GOSA Bronze Award in 2017.
As examples of successes beyond the classroom, White noted the creation of the SEBMS Builders Club, with teacher Lisa Crowe as lead advisor and support from the Brooklet Kiwanis Club, and the relaunch of the school’s Junior Beta Club. With Cindy Mott and Mary Jones as advisors, the chapter has been recognized as a Club of Distinction by the national Beta these last two years.
But as sources of sadness during his five years, he mentioned the deaths of “beloved parts of our SEBMS family,” including Janine Deal, “phenomenal seventh-grade English teacher,” and Jeanette Taylor, who had been the school’s head custodian since the building opened in 1999.
‘The true heroes’
White expressed gratitude to assistant principals Brad Boykin and Kelia Francis for their support this year, and to the Board of Education and district office for support of SEB Middle over five years. White also mentioned every category of employee from teachers and paraprofessionals to cafeteria workers, custodians and bus drivers to call them “the true heroes of our school” and insisted that any success has been from teamwork and built on the work of past principals.
“I feel like this is just an opportunity to return back home and be able to continue the excellence that’s already going on, and I’m confident that this school is going to continue to thrive and do even better in the years to come,” White said.
Herald reporter Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.