The Prince George’s schools executive who could teach as well as he could negotiate

Tiffany Turner-Allen was frazzled.

She’d just started a job as head of Nonprofit Prince George’s County, and her toddler son kept stumbling into the camera frame of her virtual meetings. She worried others saw her as unprofessional. In tears, she brought her concerns to her boss, Howard Burnett, the president of the organization’s board of directors.

She apologized profusely for the interruptions. Burnett, who always bragged about his own kids and talked of his days as a single father, listened intently before responding.

“You don’t have to compromise being a mother to be the executive director of this organization,” she remembers him saying. “You are a mom first, and don’t ever feel like you have to make apologies for that.”

His words gave her a new sense of confidence. For the first time, she didn’t feel the need to choose between her personal and professional lives.

Burnett’s loved ones said they could count on him to bring a levelheaded, compassionate perspective to almost any setting. They ache for his advice now, they said, as they try to navigate a world without him.

Burnett, who also spent more than three decades in various roles in Prince George’s County Public Schools, died Oct. 28 of cancer. He was 73.

He was born Dec. 15, 1952, the third of Dolores and Mercer Burnett’s four children and their only boy. He spent most of his childhood in Riggs Park, a Northeast D.C. neighborhood on the Prince George’s County line. His mother called him “Gentleman Jim” as a young boy because he was so courteous and respectful, said his daughter, Tiffany Burnett.

When he was 7, Howard believed God spoke to him and told him to walk daily, his daughter said. For the next six weeks, he found his way to church every day and strengthened his faith. It would guide the rest of his life.

A young Howard was a natural leader and always had a stack of books in his arms, his daughter said. As a teenager, he was quarterback of the local Boys & Girls Club football team and led it to its first championship. At 19 he was elected chairman of the Riggs Park neighborhood planning council, and he helped launch tutoring initiatives and basketball tournaments, his daughter said.

He was accepted to both Howard University and the District of Columbia Teachers College and chose the latter because it was more affordable. He was elected class president.

But he still found his way to Howard’s campus for a military training program. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve and continued his military service for more than 20 years.

After graduating from college, he started working as a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher in Prince George’s County. It was the only county schools job he ever applied and interviewed for, his daughter said — the rest of the roles came to him.

Through the years, he worked as an assistant principal, principal, labor relations officer, assistant to the superintendent, human resources leader and interim CEO.

“That level of influence came from people learning who he was and how he was, no matter what the setting,” Tiffany Burnett said.

During Monica Goldson’s tenure as CEO of the district, which spanned the COVID years, Burnett helped negotiate union contracts and secured retroactive pay for school staff, she said.

School leaders trusted his judgment and decision-making skills, Goldson said. She called him the “GOAT” — greatest of all time — “in education for Prince George’s County Public Schools.”

“He always listened, never was demeaning, always open to accepting new ideas,” Goldson said. “He continually learned.”

Still, there were few things better than being in a classroom. He loved any opportunity to meet with students and help them achieve their goals, loved ones said.

“He recognized education as a source of opportunity for everyone, and public education, having no cost and equal opportunity, was just a ticket and a way for everyone to advance,” said his wife, Gloria Brown Burnett.

He retired from the school system in 2006 but returned 12 years later at the CEO’s request. He helped with administrative roles on and off over the next several years, most recently serving as chief negotiator for a union contract in June.

In the interim years, he worked in the county health and human services office and deepened his involvement in community organizations.

But his favorite role, above any job, was dad.

He had his first two children, Tiffany and Jerrod, with his first wife in his 20s. He was always the primary caretaker, his daughter said, but it became official after her parents divorced when she was 9. She remembers him sitting her and her brother down on a curb one afternoon to tell them about the separation and the new living arrangements. He gave them options, and they came to a decision together.

“That was just a primary example of how he was in everything: loving, respectful, kind, considerate, but directed and purposeful,” Tiffany said.

He drew cartoons on his kids’ lunch bags and showed up for their extracurriculars. Despite her father’s busy schedule, Tiffany can’t think of one event he missed.

He had two more children, Malik and Jaden, in his 40s. And then, when he fell in love with Brown Burnett in 2011 after meeting her at work, he took in her kids, Bethany, Ian and Meghan, as bonus children.

“He had so much love to give that he could give it to his four, and then extend it to my three, and nobody felt like they were being shortchanged,” Brown Burnett said. The couple loved sitting by the water together and sharing deep talks.

Brown Burnett also valued her husband’s sage advice. He always knew what to say and when to say it, but always in a kind way, she said. People praised him for it at work and at home.

“He has developed leaders everywhere he’s gone, the school system and county government, and the fruits of that labor are still bearing fruit,” she said.

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