Parker sends final message to parents before entering retirement

MADISON – Madison City Schools will celebrate the long education career of MCS Superintendent Robby Parker today. At the end of the day he will leave the Madison City Schools’ central office and embark on a new chapter of his life.

Parker surprised many when he announced his retirement last month, which will take effect at the end of the day. Assistant superintendent Eric Terrell will become the interim superintendent while the school board searches for Parker’s replacement.

Parker has led the school district for three years after being picked by the school board to replace long-time superintendent Dr. Dee Fowler. He is a 31 year veteran of Madison schools, having served as a teacher, coach, assistant principal, principal and assistant superintendent before taking the top spot in Jan. 2017.

He has been with school district since its inception in 1998, seeing it through explosive enrollment and rising accolades as a top performing school district. His school leadership assignments included Discovery and Liberty Middle, and Bob Jones High School where he spent 10 years as principal.

“In 1984, the Lord called me to teach. I was never so sure of anything in my life. Now, the Lord is leading me away from the Superintendent role. I am equally as sure of that,” Parker said when he announced his retirement. “I will always love all of the thousands of kids that have shared their lives with me for 31 years. I will be forever thankful for the trust and love all of you have given me. I am also thankful to this Board, former Boards and former Superintendents for the confidence they have shown in me.”

This morning Parker sent a final message to all of the parents and staff within the Madison City School District:

“I never thought about what my last words to all of you would be.
What can I say to the family that I have been a part of since I was 24 years old?
I am not sad because I have another mission to accomplish, but I will certainly miss seeing the kids and staff every day. I do not worry about the quality of instruction, the world class education or any other part of the experience our kids get. However, I do worry about something. I will get to that later.

Bear with me on this next part: I love post-apocalyptic movies. Three of my favorites are Omega Man (remade as I AM LEGEND), The Book of Eli (my favorite) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
My wife hates them and gets a “stomach ache” every time one of them comes on. I can name a number of scenes that resonate with me, but the one that struck me most was the final scene in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. After all the battles were over and the remaining survivors are together some years later, Savannah, the leader of the survivors, speaks to the group. In her broken English/Australian/fake movie accent, she tells the history of her people. She implores them to keep telling the story. She tells how they are the lucky ones and that others lead the way, but they knew that what they had now was even beyond what they had dreamed.