School Booster

That’s a trick question, as anyone who knows her can attest. McManus has built her reputation, and that of the foundation, by staying out of the funding, policy, human resources and other matters that are the responsibility of administrators and elected officials.

"We’ve always maintained quite a neutral relationship and have built tremendous trust with teachers and principals and district leadership teams," she says. "I very rarely offer opinions. I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me or my staff."

Make no mistake, though, she’s committed to the schools, consistently focusing her efforts on the nonprofit organization’s mission "to enhance learning for Collier County children and their teachers by engaging community support."

That outreach has yielded such successful programs as the Golden Apple teaching awards, student mentoring and mini-grants for teachers. And she continues to develop ways to serve her constituency, including a new initiative that promises to help unite the community.

"She’s an advocate for a cause, and she can do that without being political," says district Superintendent Dennis Thompson. "She has great interpersonal skills. She’s perhaps the perfect leader for an education foundation."

McManus’ association with the foundation began in 1990 when she joined as a founding member. In 1993, the previous president retired and McManus promptly stepped into the position. She had recently divorced and wanted the employment, so the move made sense. "It was the easiest executive director search ever made," says Don Barber, another founding board member and former board president. "She jumped in and did a whale of a job."

McManus, a native of a small town in Ontario, felt prepared to run the foundation because of her parents, in part. "My mother was a teacher and my dad was a businessman," she says. "I really attribute to that [exposure] the fact that I’m comfortable in both worlds."

It also helped that McManus taught at St. Ann’s School in Naples and Sacred Heart Convent in Nova Scotia.

At the helm of the foundation, she became known for taking charge of ideas and turning them into programs. "Susan has expanded the scope of the foundation and has brought in innovative ideas that connect to the classroom," says Gulf Coast High School principal David Stump, a 32-year veteran of Collier County schools and past Golden Apple winner.

Teachers are the beneficiaries not only of the Golden Apples, but the Connect with a Classroom Grants, for which they can apply online. The money is used for projects that couldn’t happen via typical school funding.

Gulf Coast High School English and reading teacher Bridget Mann has received two grants. One was used so her honors students could visit senior homes, interview residents and write their biographies, which were typed up in memoir style and then returned to the residents as keepsakes. "[The experience] gave the students an appreciation of what [their interview subjects] contributed to our society," says Mann, who was a Golden Apple teacher of distinction this year.

For the kids, there is the popular Take Stock in Children initiative, which places adult mentors with students who participate in college-preparedness and leadership programs. "There are more than 200 children, and there’s a mentor for every student going to school once a week to have lunch with that student," McManus says. Upon high school graduation, a tuition scholarship awaits the student.

Additional foundation programs have met with acclaim, but they never would have survived without outside support—namely donations, which is the another crucial part of McManus’ job.

"On the business side of the operation, my programs have to work. They have to be making a difference and they have to be valued or we don’t get paid," she says. "You have to make sure [donors] understand their private investment is in a student, a teacher, a result and an outcome that they believe in."

Working with the donors doesn’t always take money, particularly in the current economic climate when budgets are tight. McManus is happy to enlist the help of volunteers who donate services instead of money

In either case, she brings in the goods. "She is persuasive," says Barber, vice chairman of Boran Craig Barber Engel Construction Co. of Naples. "Her personality draws people together."

Those attributes will be put to good use with the foundation’s latest project, "Community Conversations," based on a program by the same name in Orlando. The foundation will elicit input from residents, making sure that the county’s economic and ethnic diversity is reflected, and ultimately write a "community agreement."

"We will have something we can use as a platform to speak from, for what we all believe in," McManus says. "One of the things I hope for within this community agreement is that there will be something clearly articulated by our entire community about how we value our teachers."