Dr. Octavius Mulligan is a pillar of the Northeast Georgia community, teaching students and changing the lives of children in Hall, Habersham and White Counties over his years in education.
Formerly an assistant principal at Habersham Central High School, Dr. Mulligan is now the adored principal of White County’s Tesnatee Gap Elementary. Mulligan’s dedication to his students hasn’t faltered in his more than two decades of education as both a teacher and administrator.
Finding a passion
Mulligan didn’t have the best experience in school. As a child in New York, he fell behind in his education. Mulligan said he didn’t engage in school, skipping class because, at the end of the day, he didn’t feel like anyone there cared about him.
“In the city I lived in, because it’s a big city, the teachers didn’t necessarily live in your neighborhood,” he said. “No teachers lived in my building, I lived in an apartment building. . . there were no relationships there. They came to school, they taught or did whatever they were supposed to do, and then they went back to their areas. And so here we are— I felt like they just didn’t care.”
He remembers one teacher, his sixth-grade teacher, Ms. Feluchi, who he could tell cared about him and his classmates. He knew then that that’s how every student should feel at school, and later on, when he found his passion for teaching at Piedmont University, he knew he wanted to pass that feeling along.
Mulligan moved to Georgia to be with family after skipping most of his freshman year of high school. In the rural town of Thomson, Georgia, where Mulligan’s teachers lived in his community and cared for their students both in and out of the classroom, things started to turn around.
Mulligan earned a basketball scholarship to Piedmont University while playing high school basketball in Thomson. Once at Piedmont, his coach made sure he knew his grades were a priority with Piedmont’s academic requirements for athletes. He told Mulligan there was an education professor that wouldn’t let him fail, but what started as an easy A turned to a calling.
“I had to teach a lesson, I had to teach the letter U, so I used my basketball uniform to do it, and I brought it in,” Mulligan said of an assignment where he had to teach a group of young children. “I actually wore it, and the kids were just sitting there, listening to every word I said, and I thought ‘I can do this, this is something I can do,’ and so, that took me into the education field.”
Years later, he’d graduate from Piedmont for the third time, this time with his Doctorate of Education.
Making a difference
Mulligan wanted to give students the space and environment to grow, and from his own experience, knew where public education fell short. When he worked at the secondary education level, he says he carried around his high school transcripts to show students where he was at their age, and to show them what they could overcome. Now an elementary school principal, he says he wants to show young kids a positive male influence.
He says when he was a student at the elementary level, he never saw male figures in his classroom. He says those details matter to kids.
“You rarely see males in the elementary level,” Mulligan said. “I never had a male teacher until. . . I got to junior high school, so I was like, I want to break that, and I want kids to see males in elementary school.”
He says he tries to bring male teachers into Tesnatee Gap when he can, but that’s just one of his many goals for the school. Mulligan is finding new ways every day for his students to feel seen, cared for and engaged in their learning. From helping teachers and staff build creative learning environments to playing a quick game of rock-paper-scissors across the lunchroom with the principal, Mulligan makes school the kind of place Tesnatee’s students want to be.
“We try to make it fun so that kids want to be here because if they want to be here, then you can do the things you need to do,” he says. “It’s difficult to do what you’re supposed to do and teach your kids when they don’t want to be here— I mean, just think about that kid getting a haircut who hates the clippers; he’s fighting the barber and it’s not going to look as good as it would if he just wanted to be there, and he sat there and just got it done —we try to make it fun for our kids.”
As he walks down the halls, students reach out for high-fives, fist bumps and hugs. He’s helped shy students come out of their shells, and students that are quite the opposite learn how to navigate their school environment. Students’ younger siblings even get excited to see him during pick up and drop off, looking forward to the day they’ll see Principal Mulligan in the halls.
He says that it isn’t just him making Tesnatee Gap the kind of place students want to be. He credits the school’s environment and success to the faculty, staff and other administration who are just as dedicated to making the school a safe, engaging place for children.
He especially credits Assistant Principal Diedre Alexander and Instructional Coach Erica Whitlock, who he says Tesnatee Gap couldn’t do what they do without.
“I just believe that all the educators, from the cafeteria folks all the way up to the administrators, superintendents, they care about [our] kids,” he says. “I believe that.”
