During Black History Month, AFSA is posting profiles of some of our outstanding Black school leaders.

Emily Hunter, principal of Arlington Elementary School in Baltimore, says she was raised "all over the place." Born in Virginia, she lived in Ohio, North Carolina and Maryland and always expected to move on, much as many military kids do. However, her situation was different. Her father, Richard Hunter, was a superintendent of schools.

Dr. Hunter was a great influence on Emily, but she also rebelled against him. In other words, the educator's life was out of the question. The same was true of her sister and four brothers.

"I wanted to get away from all that," she says. "I floundered around."

While at Morgan State University, a historically black college, she investigated becoming a pediatrician but learned it wasn't for her. Next, she investigated becoming a lawyer and specializing in child welfare. Then, suddenly, apropos of nothing except a love of math, she decided to become an accountant.

One day, while walking across the Morgan State campus, Patricia Welsh, the education dean, who knew her father, stopped her in her tracks and said, "You have to switch to education."

Emily balked, but not long later, she switched to education, won a full scholarship and graduated with honors in elementary education.

"I was more mature and I went with it," she says.

Immediately after graduating, she became a second-grade teacher at Bentalou Elementary in Baltimore in 1998. She was only 20, but a teacher had quit and the principal, Mary Ann Winterling, "was amazing."

"The kids were swinging on the doors, climbing the walls, and I loved it," she says, and she followed them to third grade: "I liked the building and the relationship with the children and their families. I liked seeing them become better people."

At a summer workshop, she learned about the Edison Schools. She was asked to become a literacy lead for Edison and she did. She stayed with Edison for eight years and enjoyed it, although there was no union to protect them and "we worked our tails off."

In 2008, she became part of "Success for All." She traveled widely, providing training for districts across the country and even in Guam, and went to particular school sites to focus on the implementation of math and reading programs.

"I got great training experience and learned a lot," she says, "but I got tired of all the travel."

Soon, she was at Patterson Park Public Charter School: "It was a tough school, but it was easy for me."

Then she was named assistant principal at Roland Park, where she worked hard. She says, "I'm best at building community and engaging students. I like going into tough situations and making them better. I can get the culture down. I practice tough love."

With her innate love of a challenge, she decided to go for a principalship. In 2013, she was named principal of Arlington Elementary Middle School and became a member of Public School Administrators & Supervisors Association of Baltimore City, AFSA Local 25. She has been at the school ever since and is known throughout the community at large. She has been able to improve achievement and increase enrollment and says, "If you invest in your community, you'll be a success."

There has been no end of recognition for Emily. Most of all, she is delighted that Arlington Elementary School, as it is named today, became a "Heart of the School" winner, recognized for mutual involvement, parent involvement and community involvement. Her faculty and administration are outstanding.

"The greatest challenge for a principal is learning to balance work life and personal life," she says. "I try hard not to take my work home, but I train people so I can delegate to them."

For Emily, this is of the utmost importance because until recently she was finishing her certification in leadership at Harvard Business School as well as raising her 9-year-old son, Hunter, and running two businesses after standard work hours and on weekends: Nothing Bundt Cakes bakeries.

"The bakery was my mother's idea," she says, referring to Margo Hunter, a former teacher. "I now manage her business from afar and have one of my own. I really like that we hire high school kids and teach them to be successful at work."

When she's not working, she is very active with the Links, a social and service organization for African American women, and Delta Sigma Theta, a sorority for black women founded in 1913.

Most of all, she enjoys hanging out with Hunter. She believes that today more than ever, parents need to spend time with their kids and talk to them. "Talk about reality," she says, and she notes that this is especially true as they enter middle school, which she sees as the most sensitive time of their lives.