First Posted: 2/2/2015
LIMA — For Judy Wells, passion has erased the barriers that gender may sometimes present.
As superintendent of Apollo Career Center, Wells has never faced blatant discrimination or sexism in her career, which she attributes to people seeing more than her gender.
“It’s not necessarily a gender thing if you have the passion and the commitment,” she said. “I think people recognize passion, and they want to be around it. It’s a contagious thing.”
At Apollo, where she’s been for about six years, she is in charge of approximately 300 employees as the school’s first female superintendent.
Wells taught for several years before she became a school administrator, an area she said is more male-dominated and which comes at a higher cost than it does for her male colleagues.
“As a female, you deal with issues along the lines of guilt and leaving you’re family,” she said. “It’s a hard cost for a lot of women.”
What’s gotten her through the tough times comes back to her passion for the job and the people.
“Every position I’ve ever had has increased my passion for being a good ambassador and advocate for our students,” Wells said, adding that students sometimes don’t feel like they have a voice.
Throughout her journey to running her own building, Wells has had mentors and role models along the way that helped her and encouraged her.
“I so admired their passion, their commitment, their intensity to what public education can offer, and that became really important to me,” she said.
Though most of Wells’ mentors were male, she believes in the importance of encouraging the next generation of women.
“I think we owe it to our younger women to encourage them, to let them know this is a choice, and you can do it,” she said. “I think women have come a long way.”
So far in her time in Lima and Allen County, Wells has found other women in similar roles who have become her friends.
“It’s been really great,” she said. “I’ve found men and women that were so wonderful to work with.”
