St. Charles Parish is officially back to school.
Teachers filled the Lafon Performing Arts Center in Luling Monday as the St. Charles Parish Public School District held its annual Back on the River kickoff event for the school year.
The always high-energy event also saw representatives from business and industry, as well as parish leaders in attendance. The district held a morning and afternoon session of the presentation for the district’s employees – in the center of everything is an overall event theme of “You belong here.”
Back on the River serves as the district’s annual welcome-back celebration for employees, outlining goals for the year while recognizing educators for their work preparing students for the future.
This year’s keynote speaker was Merlyna Mathieu Valentine, and it was a homecoming for her. Valentine spent 30 years as an educator in St. Charles Parish. She is a former principal of St. Rose Elementary, and prior to that had tenures at Ethel Schoeffner Elementary and Carver Early Learning Center. She has been named Principal of the Year at both the district and state levels and Teacher of the Year during her time in St. Charles Parish, and served as the parish’s executive director of elementary schools.
Valentine has overcome incredible tragedy to find success and inspire others.
In August of 2007, a kidney stone led to a life-threatening blood infection for Valentine, who said her doctors believed that had she been hospitalized just 30 minutes later, she would have been unlikely to survive.
She survived, but the situation still had great cost. Over the next year she underwent four amputations, losing both hands and both legs as a result of the infection.
“(Doctors) spoke with me about worst case scenarios,” Valentine said to the crowd. “They told me my quality of life would be very different … the things you love to do, you may never do them again. What stung the most, they told me, Merlyna, going back as principal will be nearly impossible. The job is far too demanding and physically challenging.
“That’s when a big smile came across my face … I told them that I’ve come to learn impossible is a matter of opinion – one I don’t choose to have.”
Valentine made the decision that this wouldn’t stop her – nor would she even let it slow her down for long. She returned to work as soon as she learned to use her prosthetics.
“There’s always a way through it,” Valentine said.
After 30 years, she retired from education, but continued seeking ways to impact lives. Valentine has authored two books: a children’s book, Daisy the Extra Special Flower, about overcoming adversity, and Living Life Without Limb-Its, the story of her journey. She has become a motivational speaker and a leadership consultant.
“I had two choices. Stay looking in the mirror, feeling sorry for myself – woe is me,” she said. “Hosting pity parties. But I had a second choice – for me to decide I couldn’t stay stuck there in the struggle. I told thousands of my former students that they couldn’t give up, had to keep going, you don’t use the word can’t, you have to persevere. It was my turn to walk that talk.”
Following her appearance, Valentine noted that she saw several of her former students at the Lafon Center, both from her second grade classroom and also her days as a principal, and said that “there’s no place like home.”
“I know for a fact that thousands and thousands of students will one day say ‘I am who I am because of St. Charles Parish Public Schools, and that someone believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.’ Don’t you want that story to be told about you?” Valentine said. “Every child is one caring adult away from being a success story.”
