When the phrase "first black administrator" is used in a sentence describing her, she stares away for a moment, before a slight smile appears.
"It's a pretty awesome honor," she says.
Since becoming principal in 1992, she's noticed the school seems to have come closer together as a tight-knit family.
"We try to foster that type of relationship not only with our employees, but with all the stakeholders," Overstreet says, explaining that parents are hugely important in the grand scheme of things.
Also important, she says, is keeping some of the older traditions around, such as the Parent-Teacher Organization Fall Festival and field day, as well as implementing new things.
As she talks, it's apparent that her upbringing sculpted her need to uphold a certain standard.
Adopted as a baby by Mary and Arthur Dunn, Overstreet says she was never told anything different by her parents.
"I can't even recall when they first told me, I just always knew," Overstreet says. She recalls telling family members that she knew she was special, that her parents went to a grocery store and picked her out from all the kids on the shelves.
"God put us together"
"It was definitely an adoption of total love, just meant to be," says Mary Dunn. "We are so proud at who she's turned out to be, and very, very graced by the love of God to have found her. It was just meant to be!"
Overstreet said due to multiple miscarriages, her mother decided to adopt around age 34. Overstreet was raised with no siblings but a large family of cousins, aunts and uncles, and she never had the need to wonder about her birth parents.
"Coming up was wonderful, and we feel God put us together. Of course, I really have no other life to compare it to," Overstreet says. The life she could have had without the Dunns, she admits, may have been questionable.
Overstreet had to wear leg braces as a child after coming dangerously close to having Rickets, a bone disease resulting from Vitamin D deficiency. All Overstreet knows about her birth mother is that she was very young and more than likely malnourished.
"Doctors wanted to break my legs as a child, but my parents wouldn't have that," Overstreet says. She also had rotten teeth due to her condition because of a lack of calcium.
Won't leave education
Overstreet will retire in just six more years but doesn't foresee herself leaving education all together.
"I see a couple of pockets of kids that are constantly left behind as far as educational funding is concerned," Overstreet says. "There should be two adults in every classroom, not just kindergarten."
Kids that don't meet the specific academic criteria to get extra help seem somewhat left out of the picture, she says, after No Child Left Behind filters down to the state level.
"And the same for gifted children. It seems like there's no more school-run programs for them under the funding, either," she says. "I'd like to be an advocate for these two pockets of kids."
She's not sure whether this would begin at the grassroots level, if she would run for political office or try to get a job with the state. "I just know I think it's important."
Overstreet's biggest problem, she says, is that she pushes people to their limits.
"I'm always looking at how to do better, and I expect a lot," Overstreet says. "I need to learn how to praise more, celebrating the moment. I think I'll work on that."
