After a number of stops along the way, Tate Skinner is in his third year as the principal of Manchester Elementary. (Photo provided)

After a number of stops along the way, Tate Skinner is in his third year as the principal of Manchester Elementary. (Photo provided)

<p>Tate Skinner is seen her with two of his prized baseball cards, Rickey Henderson and Cal Ripken rookie cards. (Photo provided)</p>

Tate Skinner is seen her with two of his prized baseball cards, Rickey Henderson and Cal Ripken rookie cards. (Photo provided)

By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

When John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote “the Long and Winding Road” they certainly weren’t writing it to describe Tate Skinner, but they could have been. Skinner, who is in his third year as the principal at Manchester Elementary, has seemingly taken every winding road to get to where he is today, a place he says “feels like home”.

Tate Skinner grew up in Sciotoville and attended Harding Elementary where he says the the principal there, John Hendricks, was the “ultimate” elementary principal. “I can try to be like him but that’s not going to work and I have such warm memories of Harding Elementary,” says Skinner.

Skinner grew up with his mother, his grandparents and his Uncle Ray and Aunt Maxine, all of whom lived in close proximity to each other.

“I grew up around people who got up every morning and went to work and you had to do a job and you had to do it right. If my grandfather wanted me to mow the grass, I had to mow it right or else I went back and did it again. You were always expected to do your best and expected to have manners. You were taught right from wrong and to help others and to do the best you can. I’m real thankful I had that kind of upbringing.”

Skinner went to middle school and high school at Sciotovile East, where one of his teachers was the influence that eventually sent him towards a career in education.

“I had the best high school math teacher, John Correll, and he was all business, ” Skinner explained. “H went piece-by-piece with you and gave the class the whole lesson but if anyone needed extra help, he would sit with us at what was an old Science table with white paper and a black permanent marker. He’d ask us where we were having trouble and he’d make a problem up on the spot and work it our for us and let us keep the white paper to take home and use as an example. That was it for me, I decided I really wanted to do that. He was Southern Ohio Math Teacher of the Year in 1987 and I never thought I could really do what he did.”

Even though Mr. Correll had lit the education spark, Skinner did not go into the education field as he began college, instead going to Shawnee State with the intentions of being a Business major and he was immediately met with a professor strike. Welcome to college! He stayed at Shawnee for about a year-and-a-half, accumulated some classes, and then decide to attend the Police Academy in 1992-93.

“I had grown up around people who had gone on to be policemen,” Skinner said. “I found it interesting and remember a police officer who always stopped by my grandfather’s house and took him for a ride. I thought he was getting arrested! But that made me thing it was something I’d like to do when I got older.”

Skinner went through the Police Academy and was a special sheriff’s deputy and then worked close to full-time in the village of Piketon. “Towards the fall of 1994, I just started to think that maybe I needed to go back and be a math teacher. I went to Ohio University and got a job teaching math. I had the choice of staying close to home and doing things other than teaching or I could move far away to a math teaching position. I chose to move to Fremont, Ohio near Sandusky in 1997 to teach middle school math.”

Skinner was only in Fremont for one school year, simply because he says he wanted to get back closer to home. He ended up getting a bit closer by taking a job in Guernsey County at Buckeye Trail High School, but still wanted to come back home. His next stop was Felicity High School in Clermont County for two years, but deemed that just too far to drive. He finally got home by getting a math job at Wellston High School, staying there for four years, while grabbing his administrative certificate from Xavier University.

What many people didn’t know at the time is that while Skinner was teaching during the day at Wellston, he was also teaching online in the evenings for the Virtual Community School of Ohio. “That was probably a no-no at the time but it gave you units of credit towards retirement,” Skinner explained. “It was hard to pass up because I was making more money at night than I was during the day. I was also teaching online for the University of Phoenix and Grand Canyon University so my days were from 5 a.m. to midnight, sometimes seven days a week. Eventually the virtual school asked me to be their principal and I left Wellston and for a year I ran the virtual program from an office building in Columbus.”

After that year in the state capital (living in Grove City), and teaching math at Columbus State Community College, Skinner landed at Green High School in Franklin Furnace, teaching high school math, serving as the school’s Athletic Director and president of the teacher’s union. While he was teaching at Green from 2008-2015, Skinner proudly says that he was honored as the Southern Ohio Math Teacher of the Year award, the same one his high school math teacher had won.

“It was the same award that John Correll had won 25 years earlier when I was in high school and in my mind that means so much to me that I had something he had,” Skinner said. “I was nowhere near as good as he was but it made me quite happy.”

After his time at Green, Skinner moved on to Minford High School as the assistant principal. Skinner describes the time as Minford as “great” with great students to interact with.

“We did all kinds of fun things at Minford, like setting up an intramural basketball league during lunch,” says Skinner. “I set up a whole league with a schedule, stats and a tournament. We did it for cornhole and volleyball also. I had some really good years at Minford that I will always remember.”

Finally, how did Tate Skinner wind up at Manchester Elementary?

“I had posted on my Facebook page that I was interested in moving from assistant principal to principal and someone told me there was an opening in Manchester so I applied for it,” as he recalls the story. “I came and interviewed with Mr. (Nick) Roberts and I really liked him and what he was talking about and he seemed like he would be a good guy to work for. This was in March of 2022 and he sent me a message saying he thought they were going to go with someone else for the job and thanked me for doming down.”

“I then get a text message in June and I honestly couldn’t remember who Nick Roberts was and then I realized I was getting a job offer at Manchester. I woke my wife up for her input, she said ‘go ahead’ and so here I am.”

“The three years so far at Manchester have been wonderful because the teachers are such veterans and in such command of their subject areas,” Skinner continued. “They make it very easy for me to fit in. I didn’t change much when I took over but this is a fun group to work with and I try to support them every chance I get. It just feels like home, this might be the final stop for me. I also like the fact that I get to cover games for the high school.”

“Elementary kids are just happy to see you no matter what. They can be in trouble and they’re still happy to see you. It was an age group adjustment for me for sure. Something as simple as knowing that you talk differently to a sixth grade student than you do to a kindergarten student.”

Elementary students do need to be entertained and want school to be fun and Principal Skinner does his best to make that happen, especially with some of the recess games he has instituted, most notably “Skinner Ball”.

“Skinner Ball was an idea that came from a graduate class from Rio Grande in 1998,” Skinner explains. “It’s all centered around eight students in a group with spots marked off and the ball starts with one student and there’s a pattern that they get to pass the ball and if they complete that without dropping it in a certain amount of time that is the best at their grade level, they get a prize pack. Or they can play ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ and give up that prize and try to beat their time for another prize. They get to play on Fridays if they have had no discipline referrals at their grade level.”

Principal Skinner is also very visible in the building with his rolling cart for the downstairs hallway and his desks set up for himself at each end of the upstairs hallways. It allows him to see the students as they are passing by and also makes him quickly accessible to teachers who might need him.

”My job is to help students individually and find out where they are at,” says Skinner. “With their behavior, their academics, their mental health and with their attendance. Find out where they are at and then do what you can to move them forward. That might just be a small step but every inch of progress for a student is your purpose for being here. My philosophy of education is simply to move a student forward.”

On the personal side, Skinner has been married to his wife Kathy for 10 years, with a daughter Marie.

His hobbies begin with running, something he does at very opportunity around the Portsmouth area, something he said he started during COVID when he saw a TV report saying that people in good shape had less chance of suffering harsh effects. It started with a five-mile walk and has evolved into a running regiment that has dropped 60 pounds with runs up to 18 miles.

His other hobby is dear to this writer’s heart as Skinner is big collector of baseball cards, all the way back to the 70s and 80s. He recalls opening a new pack of 1977 Topps, wishing he still had that pack.

“I enjoyed the Reds- Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, George Foster- and I just wanted those cards,” Skinner says. “I just enjoy having a card in my hand. There’s now a card shop a block from my house and I have to force myself to go there just once a week. I just get the cards because they bring back such great memories.”

Yes, it has been quite a circuitous path for Tate Skinner to get where he is now, but the “long and winding road” led to one door, the one at Manchester Elementary.