Justin Antonini
Justin J. Antonini
Faculty
A plaque was given to Justin Antonini when he retired a second time from Euclid High School in June 2004. The plaque was headed by this quote: “I want to facilitate the job of teachers to teach and students to learn.” Those were the simple words that Justin used in his first administrator’s job interview with a Euclid Schools superintendent in the spring of 1983, when that superintendent asked why he wanted to become a principal. Those words became a kind of creed for Justin that he tried to live and work by during his 20-year career as the summer school principal, a unit/grade level principal, the associate principal, or the head principal.
Justin originally did not plan to become a teacher or to become involved in public education. He wanted to become a professional writer and perhaps, if he taught at all, teach at the college level. Certain events transpired, however, that led him on the path to a career in public education, and he never regretted taking that path.
Born and raised in Western Pennsylvania mill towns like Donora, Uniontown, and Johnstown, Justin always did well in school. At St. Patrick’s Grade School in Johnstown, he was on the school’s radio quiz show team and won the American Legion Award as the Outstanding Boy in 8th Grade. At Johnstown Catholic High School (now called Bishop McCort), he continued to excel in academics, graduating in 1959 ranked fourth in his class of 180 students and earning the outstanding English and Outstanding Boy Awards. Earlier he had been inducted into the National Honor Society at the end of his sophomore year, sang in the Glee Club, performed in plays and musicals, won a Veterans of Foreign Wars essay contest, had an essay published in a national student publication, edited the sports page of the school newspaper, and co-edited the school yearbook.
Not exclusively a bookworm in high school, Justin played football in ninth grade; basketball in ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades; and track in eleventh and twelfth grades, earning two letters. He still holds the school’s high jump record.
A scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh enabled Justin to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1963. Along the way he made the Dean’s List each of his last three years as an undergraduate and attained magna cum laude status at graduation. Working two years in the summers on a local daily newspaper gave him the experience that he needed to serve as editor of his college newspaper for one year.
Justin won a fellowship for graduate studies in English to the University of Pittsburgh, and at the conclusion of that year he was urged by a dean in the College of Education, who was seeking top liberal arts students, to pursue an internship for a master’s degree in education. He chose to go that route, and because of his success in that internship at a suburban school in the Pittsburgh area, he wound up with a Master of Education degree, an English teaching position, and an introduction to a beautiful young student teacher who eventually became his wife, Patricia.
Although Justin wanted to remain in Western Pennsylvania, where Patricia and his family lived, teaching opportunities there in the mid-1960’s were not promising. They were more promising, however, in Cleveland, Ohio, and that is how he came to work in the big city that bordered the suburban school district where he would eventually work for 33 years. After six years teaching in Cleveland at East Technical and Collinwood High Schools, he secured an English teaching job in 1971 at Euclid Senior High School where he would remain until he finally retired a second time in June 2004.
At Euclid Justin taught English for 13 years, serving also as an adviser to the Eucuyo literary art magazine for three years and as the adviser for The Survey newspaper for 10 years. In 1978 he was appointed as the English Department Chairperson as well as the summer school principal, a post he held until 1986. In 1983, after two years of coursework at Cleveland State University to become certified as a secondary school supervisor and principal, he applied for a unit principal position that had become available at the high school. It was during this interview for that position that he uttered the quote that became his bywords for the rest of his career: facilitate the job of teachers to teach and of students to learn.
In his administrative jobs at the high school, Justin always seemed to be presented with tasks beyond his normal duties that involved a lot of unexciting detail work that other administrators seemed happy to pass on to him. That was how he became involved with complex tasks like implementing data processing (computer) procedures for report cards and transcripts; setting up and administering the first school attendance office and all of its automated features; administering Ohio Proficiency Tests; managing the North Central evaluations every seven years; preparing the annual very large Faculty Manual; supervising vocational/career education through liaison work with the Lake Shore Compact of five area school districts; managing the school’s very complex state-mandated EMIS reports; administering the state-monitored Post-Secondary Enrollment Options program; the annual creating of the complex and extensive master schedule for over 2000 students and 150 teachers; managing the school’s annual academic and activity budgets; writing or supervising grants that led to the introduction of new courses and eventually a new configuration for Euclid High School; supervising and preparing directions for the annual graduation ceremony; and even the annual supervising of the event known as the Scholastic Achievement Banquet (tonight’s event), of which many of the procedures that he set up are still in place tonight. Willingly, he served as the tri-author with two Cleveland State University professors of a chapter in an educational book on school improvement entitled Creating the Quality School (1995, Magna Publications, Inc.)
During his 20 years in administration, Justin tried hard not to forget his years as a teacher so that he could better understand the problems that teachers faced in the classroom and that too many administrators forgot that teachers faced. He consciously tried to avoid the practices of the bad teachers that he had known and of the principals with whom he had worked. He always tried to take the high road, believing that nurturing teachers and students in the right way, building on the positives that were there, would not result in the enabling of weaknesses but their elimination through positive reinforcement of strengths.
That approach to his job and his attention to detail enabled Justin to conclude his 31st straight year at Euclid with a measure of success. He was rewarded on June 6, 2002, with a large and elaborate banquet that was planned by colleagues. Kind words by dear friends and co-workers made that night memorable for him. Two great highlights of that night occurred when two English teachers with whom he had taught spoke. First, Bob Petrovic, Department Chairman, read from a poem, “Child of the Romans,” by Carl Sandburg that recounted the work of a railroad roadbed worker whose toils smoothed the ride of the passengers eating steaks at flower-decorated tables in a dining car as they passed by him, eating his humble lunch from a bag on a nearby trackside before returning to work. Bob likened Justin’s work to that of that railroad worker, his career smoothing the “ride” of teachers and students on their passage through high school. Then Sue Amato, another English teacher, spoke and read from her, and Justin’s, favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. She chose the scene at the end of the trial of Tom Robinson when the gallery rises and the Rev. Sykes speaks as Atticus Finch leaves the courtroom below. Sue paraphrased the words from Rev. Sykes and read, “Euclid High School, stand up. Justin’s passing,” and the entire banquet audience rose.
After a year of serving as a consultant at Euclid High and then another year serving as the head principal in 2003-04 as the school was being reconfigured into six separate schools, Justin has continued to serve peripherally in education as a test coordinator and a supervisor of testing teams for the Westat Corporation, a Maryland research survey company that administers “No Child Left Behind” examinations to children in fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades. He has also served as a student teacher supervisor for Cleveland State University and is still involved as a volunteer researcher and biographer for the Euclid Schools Sports Hall of
Fame and the Distinguished Achievement Hall of Fame. In 2005 Justin was fortunate enough to be nominated for the Distinguished Achievement Hall of Fame by Euclid Assistant Superintendent of Schools, John Fell, who, in his nomination of Justin, kindly wrote, “He is among the most honorable men I have ever known.”
Justin is trying to slow down now at his residence in Perry, Ohio, but he looks forward to what life still holds for him with Pat, his wife of nearly 40 years, and their only child, a son Ben. Hopefully some exciting travels will be in store, as well as many rounds of golf, continued interaction with his siblings John and Marian and their families, more frequent dialogue with his alert and nearly 90-year-old mother Anne, the impending marriage of Ben, and hopefully the arrival of grandchildren, in that order.
Inducted April 26, 2007