Best to get out of the way if you were standing between Dr. Olga Korobovskaya and her big dreams.
The founding principal of the first DISD elementary in Downtown Dallas, which opened just a few months ago, never saw a barrier between herself and her next goal.
Russian-born Dr. Olga had a dauntingly brilliant mind and a fierce drive to succeed. She was larger than life -- and not just because, even at 5-10, she always wore heels.
“Everything she was doing, she loved, and the fingerprint of love was always left on that action,” said Dr. Olga’s son, Dimitry Korobovsky.
Dr. Olga was there to open car doors each morning as nervous parents dropped off their children this fall at the brand-new Downtown Montessori at Ida B. Wells Academy. Inside the school, she slipped small ceramic giraffes, the school mascot, into the space of anyone having a bad day.
With the same care, concern -- and, yes, drive -- that led her to bring her two then-young children to America for a better life, Dr. Olga spent most of 2020 bringing to life her vision for a unique DISD school.
“My mom had the biggest heart you can imagine -- and the kindest,” her daughter, Marina Denton, told me. “She never turned anybody away and always had time for family, friends, students and co-workers.”
In the cruelest of twists, that commitment to kindness contributed to Dr. Olga’s murder Dec. 15 in her Richardson home.
But it’s all the days before that one -- 58 years of extraordinary life -- that are most important to share.
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Dr. Olga adored children for as long as her own parents can remember, making clothes for their dolls and weaving flower crowns for her youngest neighbors.
Dimitry and Marina recalled the many frigid nights in their native Siberia when the power failed and their mother turned even the loss of lights and heat into a special moment. “She would light candles and set them by the piano and play music … and we’d sit there and sing until the lights came on,” Marina said.
Dr. Olga earned her medical degree in Krasnoyarsk, a city of one million people, but soon realized that teaching was her real passion. After a divorce and with Russia struggling through hard times, she put her energy into relocating to Texas with 12-year-old Dimitry and 10-year-old Marina.
She initially taught school in Weatherford, both in a preschool program and at the community college. After the family moved to the Dallas area, Dr. Olga signed on with DISD as a science teacher at Marsh Middle School, the first step toward her goal of eventually leading an entire campus.
Dr. Olga liked to compare her home life to the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding. “We are loud, we are in each other’s business,” she would say.
When Marina’s wedding neared in 2013, “my mother was determined to bring my Russian family to see me married,” she said. Afterward, Dr. Olga was able to get her parents citizenship and moved the couple, now in their 80s, into her home.
“She helped us buy our house nearby hers because she wanted us to be close and be close to her grandkids,” Marina said.
Dimitry recalled the many gatherings around seven-course meals, more than a little alcohol and a lot of singing of old Russian songs. “Nobody was expected to go home early from her parties,” he said.
Dr. Olga threw 1,000% of herself into any endeavor -- whether artwork and poetry or gardening and remodeling. But her greatest desire was to create and lead a public school that used the Montessori teaching model.
That chance came after DISD trustees approved a proposal, written by Downtown Dallas Inc., to offer such a school in the city’s center to attract families who live or work nearby. The school would be open to any student living within the district and add to the number of highly sought Montessori slots.
Dr. Olga, who had burnished her resume with experience as a principal of a Plano Montessori school and as assistant principal at DISD’s Eduardo Mata Montessori, was the perfect choice to lead the downtown campus.
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Even amid the pandemic, Dr. Olga won over the parents of 223 students, the largest ever first-year enrollment for a transformation campus.
“From day one, she had that strong personality to be able to recruit private and public school parents, even millennial parents,” said Angie Gaylord, deputy chief of DISD’s Office of Transformation and Innovation.
When young parents Chad and Elizabeth Thorpe moved to East Dallas, they were intent on finding the best DISD option. Chad works downtown, so he paid special attention to the planning for the new Montessori.
The family’s communications with Dr. Olga cemented the decision to enroll their 6-year-old kindergartener, Landry. “It was about everyone being a family here ... and for the kids to feel worth and become leaders,” Chad said. “She always stressed that this is our school. We make decisions together.”
Chad, volunteer coordinator for the school’s inaugural PTO, has thought a lot about the pressure on Dr. Olga to open and run a school with new children and parents at this unprecedented time.
“Her message was, ‘Trust me, I’ve got your kids. And I’ve got their best interests at heart,’” Chad said. “People were prepared to follow her forever.”
DISD executive director Dr. Michele Broughton, who supervises the district’s transformation and innovation school principals, said Dr. Olga “told us multiple times that this was her dream job, that she was so lucky to be able to do this.”
Michele and Angie told me they are in awe of the learning environment that Dr. Olga created in such a short amount of time at the school, which is housed in the third and fourth floors of the UNT System building.
“The wonder and curiosity in the eyes of the kids” is breathtaking, Michele said.
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Kevin and Jennifer Jefferson, parents of second-grader Christian and first-grader Asher, told me they got the chance to know Dr. Olga better as they volunteered during recess.
“She had the ability to connect on a human level even though she was so smart and visionary,” Kevin said. “She never stopped dreaming while also executing through the pandemic.”
“We all felt like pioneers,” Jennifer added. “She was a protector of our kids, whether helping them along the sidewalk to recess or advocating to her bosses for the right resources.”
Many more parents reached out to me to share their admiration of Dr. Olga. Each spoke of her brilliance, her vision, her drive -- and the kindness that buoyed those strengths. Each pledged to work even harder to make sure that the school Dr. Olga established continues to flourish.
It’s not lost on Dr. Olga’s adult children that her kindness played a role in her death. She provided a room in her home to a man whom she had met long ago. Thirteen years her senior, he had asked for a place to stay until he could get back on his feet financially.
“She let him stay because that’s just the kind of person she was,” Marina told me. “She would always say, ‘How can I possibly put somebody out on the street?’”
But in recent months, as the man’s behavior deteriorated, Dr. Olga began formal eviction proceedings. When he again pleaded for more time, Marina said, her mother reminded him of all the chances she already had given him.
At 3 p.m. Dec. 14, the constable’s office tacked the “final eviction notice” on the front door. Early the next morning, Dr. Olga’s parents found their daughter shot in the back of the head and the man dead of a self-inflicted gunshot, the weapon underneath him.
“He couldn’t even face eye contact with her before shooting her,” Dimitry said. “She didn’t even have a chance to fight back.”
Marina and Dimitry shared their mother’s poetry, artwork -- and her sense of humor -- at her funeral. Among the many former students, teachers and administrators who paid their respects was a woman who pressed an angel-adorned brooch into Marina’s hand.
“The lady told me, ‘When my mom passed away, your mom gave me this to show me there are angels looking over me and my mom, and to help me deal with the grief.”
Now the woman wanted to pass the brooch on to Marina. The daughter responded, “No, my mom wanted you to have it.”
Dr. Olga Korobovskaya left so many gifts. May they all be handled with the loving kindness with which she gave them.
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