Rather than the jubilant back-to-school rally that she might have envisioned, Tamiko Armstead’s first day as president of Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School on August 13 became a “day of concern.” The school reflected collectively on the death of Michael Brown Jr., the unarmed Ferguson teen who was killed by police on August 9.
Yet the spontaneous event was a truer reflection of Cardinal Ritter’s heart and soul than anything she could have organized, she said.
“Michael Brown hadn’t even been funeralized,” she said. “My students organized a demonstration and walked around Grand Center (where the school is located). The real magic happened right after that.”
The school had invited alumni to discuss the issue on a panel, and many chose to talk about how Cardinal Ritter prepared them for successful lives.
“I stood there thinking, ‘That’s my story,’” said Armstead, who is herself an alumna, class of 1991. “It helped our students do self-reflection about their place in the world and how people view them. They see themselves as the counter-narrative that’s out there, and they want their stories to be told.”
A former school board member, Armstead was tapped to become the next president in early 2014, succeeding her former teacher and close mentor Leon Henderson. And in her first year, Armstead has led many changes – from building new community partnerships to increasing the rigor of their curriculum.
The latest incoming freshman class was 67 percent larger than the previous year. Their overall enrollment was 230 in the fall of 2014, but they aim to reach full capacity of 400. She anticipates that their enrollment in the fall 2015 will be 270.
“People are seeking to come here in a way that I haven’t seen in a while,” she said.
In the wake of Brown’s shooting death, Emerson donated $400,000 over the next four years to fund scholarships for Ferguson-area students to attend Cardinal Ritter. Tuition costs about $8,000 a year.
The school’s mission is still as strong as Armstead remembers it from her teen years. She said the school “built her up” and helped her fully realize what she could offer the world.
“It was done by pointing back and around to people who look just like me,” she said. “Everything about African-American history was ingrained in us students, but it was done with the purpose of allowing us to pull from the strength of our ancestors. It made us feel excited about who we were.”
When Armstead was an undergrad at Wilberforce University near Dayton, Ohio, she participated in a competition where she spoke about what she thought she would be doing in 20 years.
“At that time, I said I wanted to run a school,” she said.
After graduation in 1995, she moved back to St. Louis and started a 19-year career with Edward Jones, where she held various leadership positions. All the while, she maintained a connection with the school – namely, by serving on the school’s board for the last 10 years.
In February 2014, she was at a fundraising gala for the school when George Henry, then the superintendent of Catholic education for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, asked Armstead what she thought about becoming the president of Cardinal Ritter.
At first the idea stunned her, she said, but it was her mother who reminded her about what she said at the university competition in June 1994.
“I accepted in June 2014 – 20 years to the month after that,” she said.
When she accepted, Henry wrote a letter to the Cardinal Ritter community, stating, “Tamiko has spent the majority of her life affiliated with CRCP. She has the knowledge and relationships to immediately connect with the leadership team to address the needs and challenges of the school.”
Armstead feels her life experiences over the last 20 years have prepared her for this role – including her training at Edward Jones and the executive MBA program at Washington University.
She gives credit to Henderson for inspiring her to become a leader. When she was in eighth grade, Armstead heard Henderson, who was a teacher at the time, give a presentation about Cardinal Ritter, and that was why she chose to attend the high school. He has remained an important mentor ever since.
“He always had a way of helping me find out what was the best way to contribute wherever I was,” she said. “That’s why I joined the board.”
She praised her parents, Robert and Patricia Cunningham, for always supporting her goals, along with her husband, William. They have four sons Dakarai, a Cardinal Ritter student (16), Amari (14), Jahari (8) and Shamar (1).
Her next goal is to make Cardinal Ritter the first choice for families, locally and nationally.
“We want to be the institution everyone seeks out to be educated, to grow, to conquer the world,” she said. “People should start relocating to come to high school here because of the impact that it has on whole families.”
Follow this reporter on Twitter @rebeccarivas.
