Year Honored: 2005

Birth: 1944

Biography

Valerie A. Woodruff worked as a classroom teacher, guidance counselor, and then school principal at Middletown High School starting in 1984. During her time at Middletown, she established the first Wellness Center in a Delaware High School, which provides physicals, treatment of minor injury or illness, immunization, women’s health, and counseling. For encouraging other schools in the area to open their own wellness centers – today nearly every High School in Delaware has one – Woodruff was named Principal of the Year (1990).

In 1999, Woodruff was named Delaware Secretary of Education, and held the position through two administrations. She worked to establish standards-based education “as the foundation for strong accountability among educators, students, and parents to enable the highest possible academic achievement for the thousands of children enrolled in Delaware’s public schools.” Woodruff also served on a number of local and national committees, including President of the Executive Board of the Council of Chief State School Officers and was invited by the U.S Department of Education as one of a six-member group to discuss revisions of federal education policy in the early 2000s.
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Sources and Additional Readings

Delaware Commission for Women. (2006). Twenty-Fifth Anniversary: Hall of Fame of Delaware Women: The Legacy Endures.