Liaison for base, schools retires
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on September 30, 2016 9:57 AM
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Robert Freeman
Robert Freeman, school liaison officer between Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and Wayne County Public Schools since 2007, is retiring today. It is a bittersweet occasion for the child of a tenant farmer growing up in Pitt County who has spent the past 44 years in state and federal service. He retired from the Air Force in 1993 after 21 years in the military.
He was hired to teach Air Force ROTC at Tarboro High School and two years later took a job in the same capacity at Eastern Wayne High School, working there for seven years.
In 2002, he received his master's degree from East Carolina University and became assistant principal at Carver Elementary School and then Greenwood Middle.
When he learned about the liaison position in 2007, he applied and was hired.
He served in the role for "nine years, six months and 25 days," he said with a laugh.
"It has been amazing. The things that I got to do in this job, just unbelievable, really," he said.
From quarterly luncheons with base and school leadership and collaborations with the district's military counselor, to town hall meetings with military families, the role has grown to setting up programs for home-school families and those with special needs children.
"The last three years I have been wearing two hats, also the Exceptional Family Member Program, as family support coordinator," he said. "Typically school liaisons don't do that but I absorbed it when the funding went away."
He has attended a lot of meetings, from the regular monthly school board meetings to his state-level appointment on the N.C. Council for the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children. The governor signed the organization into law in 2008, to support the military child transitioning between member states during the child's school year.
But it is the day-to-day things that have meant the most. Meeting families and being in a position to help them has been rewarding, he said. It helped to have a background in both the military and education, he said.
One of the most frequently asked questions he fields from military families coming to the area, he says, is, "What's the best school?"
"My saying, I should have it on my wall, is that school is only as good as the teacher who's teaching your child at the time," he said. "If you're looking for the best school, what you're really looking for is that best teacher.
"You get to know your child's teacher, how well they are relating with the children, teaching the curriculum and just classroom management. If you're not pleased with something you see, talk to the teacher, sit down with them, go in to the classroom and observe that teacher because parents can do that."
Getting to know the child's teacher -- and letting them get to know you -- is a win-win, he said, and makes for a better working relationship on both sides.
"That was the most important thing to me," he said. "I want military parents to understand. It's not so much the school structure.
"We have old buildings, we have some not so old. Now we have a few brand new. But it's still that teacher in the classroom that's teaching your child."
Freeman, who turned 62 on March 29, initially anticipated he would ease into retirement April 1.
"And then I thought about it, prayed about it," he said. "I decided I'd hang on in for a few months. I got up to this point in July and August, I have given everything I can give to this."
A replacement for the position has not been named, but Freeman says he anticipates he will return to help with the transition.
"I expect they're going to make the program, just take it to another level, do things that maybe I didn't even think of doing," he said. "That's what I envision -- a really great person coming in.
"I'm happy that I'll still be able to maybe impart a little bit, connect them with people I worked with and networked with, to just hand them off."
He has a few plans of his own for retirement, he said.
One will definitely be ministry, the ordained minister said. At his church, The Lord's Table, he oversees Grief Share, for families who lost a loved one in death.
"I definitely see ministry in the community, still helping people," he said.
He also has three grandchildren. Daughter Ravonda Bradford, who lives in Atlanta, has two young children, and son Robert Freeman Jr., a major in the Army, is stationed at Fort Meade with his wife and child.
He would also like to do some traveling.
The Vietnam and Desert Storm veteran said he hopes to visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial one day and pay his respects.
And he may even run for office.
"I had plans to run for the Board of Education, but I had to run it through base leadership," he said, explaining that the timing was off for this election but could be a possibility in the future. "Maybe some type of public office later."