Gloria Dumas Bishop, director of Withlacoochee Technical College in Inverness, is retiring this week after 35 years in education.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed my career in education and take a lot of pride in the work I have done not only as a teacher but also as an administrator,” Bishop said.
As a teacher, Bishop worked with all levels of education at nine different schools across Citrus, Alachua and Palm Beach counties. In Citrus County, she started teaching in August 1988 at Lecanto Middle School as a seventh- and eighth-grade math teacher.
She taught at LMS for four years before moving to Gainesville. When she moved back to Citrus in 1999, she began teaching eighth-grade math at Inverness Middle School, as well as part-time teaching GED classes at WTC in the evenings.
“That was the first opportunity I had working with adults, and I just kind of fell in love with it,” Bishop said.
It was also during this time that she went back to school to get her master’s degree in education and, after teaching GED classes for a year, she decided to do her graduate internship at WTC.
“Of course, that just made me fall in love with WTC more,” Bishop said. “I learned about the career and technical side, as well as the adult education side that I had worked in.”
During that time finishing her master’s, she went from teaching at IMS to teaching at Citrus High School as a business teacher for three years.
Then, after finishing her master’s, she went on to become the dean of students at CHS for a year and then assistant principal at Crystal River Middle School for six years and principal at CRMS for another six years.
Bishop always said through all of this, though, that if there was ever an opportunity to return to WTC, she would love to work there again.
In May 2015, the opportunity arose for the position of director at WTC and Bishop took the job. She has been director for eight years now.
With her background of a bachelor’s in business administration combined with her other degrees and experience in education, Bishop was a perfect fit for the position.
“WTC is a special place because, you know, when you’re teaching in middle school or any other grade level, you see changes in your students, but they’re slight,” Bishop said.
“In middle school, they’re so young still, so they’ve got so many more years left to mature. One of my favorite things about WTC is that you see that change in people’s lives quickly. Within 10 months or a year, their whole world’s changed because they’ve gained the knowledge and the skills to go out into the workforce and have a meaningful career, even if it’s just a steppingstone.”
Her impact at WTC can be seen in exit surveys filled out by students at the end of their courses.
A recent welding student wrote, “Mrs. Bishop was extremely kind, understanding and compassionate to me throughout the year, so much so, that I believe she is the sole reason why I was able to complete the course.”
Additionally, the WTC staff threw Bishop a retirement party and reminisced in farewell cards given.
One colleague, a principal she worked with for many years, wrote, “You have been a model of integrity, professionalism, and kindness. I have truly enjoyed working with you through the years.”
A teacher at WTC wrote, “In my almost 20 years at WTC, you were by far the best director. … It has been an honor working for and with you.”
During her time as director, Bishop and the staff at WTC noticed a recent rise in large distribution centers and warehouses being built, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a clear need in the workforce for technicians who could operate the machinery and do repairs in these types of places.
So the teachers wrote a program called Industrial Machinery & Controls Technician, and they were able to get it approved by the state. Not only is it now a new program to be offered at WTC, it also became part of the state curriculum and can be offered at any technical school across Florida.
“This is the first year we’ve offered it here and we’ve got 12 students enrolled in the program, so it’s doing well, and we’re really excited about that,” Bishop said.
WTC will have an interim director, Debra Stanley, director of career, technical and adult education for the Citrus County School District, until they find someone willing to take up the mantle after Bishop’s evident impact.
She said she always felt that whatever school she was at was the best. “That was my job – to make it the best and to work to make sure the staff and students felt that way also.”
Bishop herself, now 61 years old, is having mixed emotions about retiring, saying she’ll miss the work and the difference they make at WTC. However, she said she’s looking forward to going for morning runs after the sun has risen and getting to spend more time making memories with her granddaughter Addy Rose.
