During Women’s History Month, AFSA is featuring profiles of some of our outstanding women school leaders.
Motherhood determined everything for Buffalo native, union activist and senior administrator Marianne Dixon. Raised in Buffalo, she graduated from South Park High School, attended by generations of her family since 1937. Although she did not know what she wanted to become, she valued education and began college undeclared at the State University of New York College at Buffalo. Then, before she earned her bachelor’s degree, she had a baby girl named Brigid.
“When that happened, I just had to support my daughter,” she says. She moved back home into a houseful of women. She had three sisters and a mother who was the sole breadwinner.
Marianne began teaching core subjects for grades K-4 at St. Agatha School prior to obtaining her professional teaching credentials. Next, she became a receptionist while working toward her master’s degree in secondary school social studies. She took the placement exam as a social studies teacher and was quickly called in to replace teacher Bob Booth at West Hertel High School when he went out for surgery.
“What I didn’t know was that Bob was the most popular teacher in all of Buffalo Public Schools,” she recalls. “It was hell. It toughened me up.”
Competitive by nature, she kept moving forward, wanting to set a good example for her daughter and knowing that “hard work pays off.” She went to Poplar School, which she calls “the school of hard knocks.” The school was 100% African American “in a day when cultural differences weren’t acknowledged.”
“But I had great mentors and I made it,” she said. “Off the top of my head, there was English teacher Theresa Harris-Tigg and science teacher Gary Witak.”
Both guided her and gave her the space to grow as a professional and as a teacher.
Her career would take her to Stanton Academy and Southside Elementary School.
“I like the interaction with students and like to show them how to make decisions,” she says. “In other words, critical thinking.”
But by 2002, she was ready for the next challenge. Her daughter Brigid was getting older and ready to move out of the house. Today, she is the director of business operations at Pearson, living and working in London. Marianne says, “I am incredibly proud of her.”
Marianne was already doing administrative work as part of her pursuit of a master’s degree in educational leadership. She moved through the ranks as a middle-level point person, a project administrator and, finally, the director of school leadership for the school system, where she remains today.
“I always thought I’d be a good leader and always wanted to keep moving,” she says. “But I still miss the classroom, and I miss it every single day. I could be an even better teacher today with all the equipment that’s available. And kids keep you young.”
Her big break in administration came when she began attending the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Principals’ Center programs. From 2011 to 2024, she spent weeklong periods in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“It’s a great town,” she says, “and it has the best professional development ever.”
Among other programs, she participated in courses on closing the achievement gap, turnaround leadership and leadership development for principals. Her professors were excellent, especially Katherine Merseth and Diana Mattern. Professors from Harvard Business School also participated and “gave us great ideas on leadership and thinking outside the box.”
As director of school leadership for Buffalo Public Schools, Marianne says she “takes care of all logistics from dawn to dusk.” This includes incident reports, child abuse issues and managing all grants, including $6.5 million this year.
And for fun, she runs National History Day, a nationwide competitive project with a new theme for students every year. This year’s theme is “Revolution, Reaction, Reform.”
“I really like helping schools,” she says. “I’m an operations person. I know how to buy and sell just about anything in the district, and I like to be able to point out when the system is working against us.”
This feeds directly into her union activity. She is vice president of the Buffalo Council of Supervisors & Administrators, AFSA Local 10 and has been an AFSA national delegate three times.
“This is because I want to make sure people are treated fairly,” she says. “Folks are just looking for the playing field to be level. If I see mistreatment or a violation, I organize a grievance. I like to go the extra step and cite the contract.”
Her colleagues say she is particularly sensitive to women, and she agrees.
“Often women are not given the same recognition, so I try to help them navigate the system,” she says. “It goes back to privilege. I had no idea what white privilege was, but now I do, and I realize I’m a beneficiary of it. It is much the same with male privilege.”
Between her job and the union, she says she has little time for anything but mindless TV, although she makes an exception for late-night pundits.
She has also been able to travel quite a bit, especially to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales — a happy harbinger of things to come. Marianne hopes to retire next year and move to London to be near Brigid and to travel much more.
“I can never stop completely, though,” she says. She hopes to teach at an American school or a school for military children.
