About Maureen

Getting to Know Maureen A. Kelly

The Book Club…

“Maureen, because you are so good at math and love to read, I am going to put you in charge of the Book Club,” said Sister Mary Ann to Maureen. It was September, and fourth grade had just begun.

As an avid reader, Maureen was thrilled to be asked to do this, because it meant that she would be the first to see the new book club releases. “Your responsibilities are to tally the orders and payments on this form, then give it to me,” Sister said.

Just before Thanksgiving, Sister Mary Ann came to Maureen with a concerned look on her face. When Maureen saw ‘the look,’ she knew there was trouble. “Maureen, there is a problem with the book club. I can’t figure out why, but the amount of money collected on the order form doesn’t equal the amount of money we’ve sent to the Book Club. I just can’t figure out what’s wrong. Would you mind taking all these orders from the last three months home and seeing if you can find it?”

“Wow! This is scary!” Maureen thought after Sister Mary Ann’s request. She didn’t want to let Sister down, so she gladly agreed to see if she could find the problem.

Later that evening, Maureen found the mistake in less than an hour.

“Good morning, Sister Mary Ann! I found it!” She showed the teacher where the error was, and how it affected all the entries that followed. “Good job, Maureen!”

Sister Mary Ann paused for a moment, and then said, “Maureen, I want you to be in charge of the entire Book Club ordering process from now on. Instead of just filling out the tally sheet with student orders, I want you to also transfer that to the order form that I use. Put the dollar amount that we pay here. When you are finished, go into this drawer,” said Sister as she opened the center drawer of her desk. She pulled out a black, leather-bound binder. “These are checks. I will show you how to write the check for the order. When everything is finished, bring it to me to sign.”

The teacher was very pleased with Maureen’s work. The following year she told her fifth grade teacher about it. From fifth grade until she graduated eighth grade, Maureen was in charge of book club orders for the entire school!

Maureen became hooked on understanding money and finances and planned to study it in college! Eventually, she graduated college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Business Administration, with an almost perfect GPA!

Ice Hockey, Anyone?

When Maureen was in high school, she began to play ice hockey with the neighborhood guys. There were enough of them to form a team, and Maureen’s position was center or right wing. The team continued to play during college.

“Maureen, can we talk after the game? Just you and me?” asked Dave, the team goalie. It was a particularly cold day, and Maureen couldn’t wait to get in the car and warm up. “I need your help. Remember when I told you that my dad gave me his business to run? Something’s wrong. We have plenty of work to do, but I can’t seem to pay our suppliers on time. Sometimes I can barely make payroll. Can you check out our books and see if there is anything I can do to turn this around?” Dave knew that Maureen was studying business and finance in college and hoped she could help.

“Of course,” Maureen agreed. In a hushed voice, Dave almost whispered, “Please don’t share this with the guys. The business is on the verge of bankruptcy.”

The first thing Maureen did was a cost analysis, which she explained to Dave. “Look, you are undercharging for every repair and every service call. We need to revamp prices for parts and labor. And until we get your receivables collected and invoices paid, overtime must be cut!”

In a mere six months the business was in the black. Within 18 months, the business became profitable enough to offer raises and benefits to all employees.
When the business incorporated, Maureen was named Corporate Secretary and Chief Operating Officer. And yes, they continued to play ice hockey!

Time for a Change

The first decade of my career I used my business degree to help people manage and improve their businesses. One business that I worked with went from being on the brink of bankruptcy to being a million dollar corporation in four years.

Teaching business owners what they needed to do to become more successful was very satisfying. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I decided to go back to school to earn two Masters’ Degrees.

Making a career change was a challenge. Working full time and going to school at night is no easy feat.
To top it off, my daughters were very young, and I was facing a financial crisis of my own, having just become a single mother.

Eventually, after student teaching, I had my own classroom.

On Monday morning of my first week of teaching, I entered a room full of smiling Kindergarteners.
On Friday afternoon of that same week, I went to the Principal’s office, a crying teacher!

I asked, well really I begged, to be put in a class of older students – you know, the kind that can tie their own shoes, don’t cry for mommy every morning, and can speak to you in complete sentences.
I landed in 5th grade – a perfect fit!

Before very long I realized that school was not budgets were stretched too thin.
If I was going to make the dreams I had for my students a reality, I was going to have to depend on my financial knowledge and skills.

In my third year of teaching, I asked my principal if he would fund a program that had been proven successful in helping students become better writers very quickly. The results are amazing. It costs $1000.

He said to me, “Maureen, our budget is already spent for the school year. I am sorry, but I can’t.”

“Then is it alright if I apply for a grant to fund the program? I know of several sources of funding, and would like to give it a try.” He said to go for it and wished me luck.
No teacher had tried this before, so he was curious to see how this would work.

There were a few hiccups along the way, but a few months later, the grant was awarded.

You have to jump through several hoops and do lots of proposal writing to get a grant, but it’s worth the effort. While I was a classroom teacher, grants were awarded ranging in amounts from $1000 to $5000 which helped fund technology and writing projects in the classroom.

Later in my career as a Principal, the problems that needed to be solved were those of the entire school, not just one classroom.

Many of the children in my school district were not reaching their potential.
Some were going home to empty houses.
My solution to this problem was to start an after-school program to meet both needs,
This was a bigger dream, which meant we needed BIG money.

The superintendent told me there was no money. That didn’t stop me!
I applied for and was awarded annual grants from JC Penney in the amount of $20,000 per year to run the after-school program. It was open to all children in grades K-5 and included a snack, homework help and tutoring.

This program was started to fill a big need for many students, but ended up being life-altering for one boy named Stephen.

Stephen was a new student in school. He was a 5th grader whose family moved to town just before the start of the new school year.

He was having trouble adjusting, and had been sent to the principal’s office for causing trouble in class. Stephen was what we affectionately call a “frequent flyer.”

When Stephen signed up for the after-school program, it was an opportunity to test his reading and math levels. Maybe we could figure out why he’s having trouble in class.

Stephen’s scores were shocking! He was able to do 8th grade math, and he could read at the 10th grade level! No wonder he acts out in class. He is bored to tears,

Stephen’s parents were so grateful to learn of the test results.
They had no idea that their son was so bright.

When his parents came to meet with me about the test results, they were told that Stephen would be going to the 8th grade classroom for math.
For his new reading program, he would have individualized instruction at the high school level.

This story has a happy ending. Stephen became a model student and a classroom leader. When he graduated 8th grade and left the building to go to high school, he frequently visited me to let me know how he was doing.

Every problem has a solution. Don’t let it stop you from reaching your goals.

Let me help you find your solution. .

Contact Maureen

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Email: maureen@kellycopywriting.com

Call: 407-808-2370