“She’s going to be relentless at calling it out, and advocating that we head into the direction of helping the student and figuring out how we do so,” said Butler Tech Superintendent and CEO Jon Graft. “She is absolutely focused on students and passionate and relentless about trying to give students every opportunity, every resource, remediation and redirection when they need it. I’ve never seen someone with every action, reaction, conversation be as singularly focused on that aspect of her work.”
Durham fights for her students because someone did the same for her early in life. Her childhood story started off rocky, and a career in education was not on her radar.
After her mom died when she was 12, her relationship with her dad faltered, which Durham said resulted in spending her formative teenage years couch surfing, and she “screwed around” too much but “had a lot of fun” in high school.
She believed she was not “college material.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
“Maybe I wanted to be a rock star,” said the Youngstown-area native. “I’d figure I’d go with the flow, hang out with friends and figure it out.”
Her high school guidance counselor, however, disagreed, and said all she needed was structure. On Durham’s behalf, and before telling her, the counselor applied to colleges. She didn’t get in.
But the counselor knew Durham’s boyfriend at the time was attending the University of Cincinnati, and knew one of the university’s colleges takes chances on students with low GPAs. She had something around a 1.7.
They did, and she was motivated. She wanted to prove to her father she could succeed in college, and she didn’t want to go back home.
Durham majored in special education, and chose that field because of a summer camp experience working with students with disabilities. Four years later, the person who thought she was not college material graduated with honors.
“Anything I have is attributed to someone who took an interest in me, and it feels so good to do that for other people,” she said of her work at Butler Tech, which includes being a mentor to students. “When you work from a space that’s not about you, you can do disruptive things.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Durham said her first job was at Garfield Middle School in Hamilton, working for the late Tom Alf. She moved on to the Princeton City Schools, including a four-year stint as a principal, and then became the director of Special Education and Human Resources at New Miami Local Schools before meeting Graft just months before he would hired as Butler Tech’s superintendent.
During that first meeting, she knew she wanted to work for him. She was hired as the executive director of Human Resources before several months later being moved to assistant superintendent.
She never thought she’d work at a technical school, but Graft’s philosophy made sense.
Graft said he and Durham share an educational philosophy of doing whatever they can to help students. Though Durham had some misconceptions at the time about career tech education, Graft said it didn’t take much to convince her that educational model “could be that catalyst for change that we as educators were looking for.”
It was a model that centered around the student, so she was all in.
“At the end of the day I serve them, not anybody else, and that’s why I love that this is considered a job or a career,” she said. “All I got to do is advocate for kids, which is super easy.”
LEADING LADIES OF BUTLER COUNTY
This is part of a series of stories featuring women in Butler County who shape their communities. These stories will feature women who are leading small and large businesses, institutions, and organizations.
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