Principal Clendaniel Looks Back

After two memorable years at T.C. Williams and 36 years spent working in education, Principal Clendaniel will be leaving T.C. at the end of this year.
Clendaniel said he has enjoyed his time at T.C. but looks forward to being able to relax. He plans to catch up on his reading (about 36 half finished books) and plans to take a 10 day trip to Paris with his family as a 35th anniversary wedding trip. However he did say that he may substitute teach later on, just to stay active, because, as he said “You can only play so much golf.”
Clendaniel has enjoyed his time at T.C. especially “getting to know the kids here. They lack that cynicism that you see sometimes in teens. What you see is what you get.” He also said that T.C. “gets branded a certain way” but that he found it to be “completely false” and in fact the people at T.C. were “some of the nicest people” he had had the pleasure to work with. He also described his favorite T.C. memory when he accompanied the boy’s basketball team to Atlanta. “Organizers came up to say this was the finest group of kids who had ever performed in our showcase.” He then went on to describe the same thing happening when he accompanied the Academy of Finance on their trip to Florida.
However, he did share a few regrets. Although he said that he would like to be remembered as a student-centered principal, Mr. Clendaniel said that he wished he could have gotten to know more of the student body. He also said that he wished he’d come to work at T.C. as a younger man and “could give more time to this school. It’s truly a diamond in the rough.”