Principal Appreciation Month: Andrea Short

October 23,  2026 –For Ooltewah Middle School Principal Andrea Short, the heart of her work is simple: it is the kids. “My greatest joy, of course, are the kids. Good, bad, or indifferent…. It’s about the kids. They bring me joy. This is why we do this work. They are the reason that teachers and administrators are still doing the work.”

Short, who is beginning her sixth year as principal of Ooltewah Middle, has spent 23 years in education and 14 years as a principal.

Before becoming a principal, Short served as an assistant principal at Howard High School. She earned her undergraduate degree from Mississippi State University, her master’s from the University of Southern Mississippi and is currently pursuing her doctorate.

But for Short, leadership at a middle school is about much more than academics.

“I try to balance both the belonging piece as well as the academic piece,” she said. Her goal this year is to create “a culture that is centered around high performance,” while making sure students are known, challenged and held to high expectations.

That starts with relationships.

Short’s favorite place in the school is the cafeteria, where she has morning duty and gets to see students as they arrive.

“I can tell what kind of day it will be by their body language, their faces, whether they speak to me or not,” she said. “I’m like, OK, what happened? Who am I going to need to pull in my office to figure out what happened over the weekend? What happened last night? What happened this morning?”

For Short, those moments are an opportunity to know students beyond their grades.

And if that means occasionally using a little middle school slang or sarcasm, Short is willing to lean into it.

“You have to have quick wit. You have to have sarcasm. You have to be able to laugh at yourself in a situation or it will be too heavy for you,” she said.

 One of the moments that sticks with her most happened during last year’s eighth-grade trip to Dollywood. A group of students, including some who did not always make the wisest decisions, specifically asked Short to be their chaperone.

“They asked me, ‘Hey, will you go on the field trip and be our chaperone? Like, can we be in your group?’” she recalled.

For Short, it was a small but meaningful sign that the relationships she had built with those students mattered.

“I’m always saying, ‘Your decisions have consequences, whether positive or negative,’” she said. “So to see the kids actually say, OK, yeah, she fusses a lot, but she’s fair. She’s fun. I want to be with her at this theme park.”

That balance of accountability and care is central to how Short leads. She is proud of the academic growth Ooltewah Middle has made, but she is equally proud of something less measurable: the relationships students have with the adults in their school. One of the school’s goals is to make sure every student has an adult they trust and can turn to.

“By far the majority of our students have an adult here in this building that advocates for them, that they trust, and they can go to and have those conversations with,” Short said.

That is also what makes her proudest of her staff.

“I can’t teach you how to love kids,” she said. “That has to be something that’s already there. And we just help to cultivate it.”

For Short, that love for students is what makes the work worthwhile.

“My greatest joy, of course, are the kids. Good, bad, or indifferent….It’s the kids,” she said. “They bring me joy. This is why we do this work. They are the reason that teachers and administrators are still doing the work.”

After more than two decades in education, Short still sees that as the heart of her job.

“You have to be in it for kids,” she said. “That’s what I would tell them.”