When Narvie J. Harris’s heart gave out on Oct. 30, she left a legacy that will long outlive her 92 years.

Known as DeKalb’s “Black Superintendent” during segregation, Harris retired from the DeKalb School System in 1983 with 39 years of service. But she never stopped working for kids.

At the Decatur elementary theme school named for her in 1999, she was a familiar figure at black history events, dinner theaters and PTA meetings.

Always well dressed and elegant, Harris could be seen chatting with students and teachers.

Dr. Sean Tartt, the school’s principal of three years, said she wouldn’t take superficial answers from anyone.

“When she asked the students what they were learning, they couldn’t just say math or English,” he said. “They had to tell her the topics.”

In her conversations with teachers, he said she always gave direct and honest feedback.

‘“Her favorite saying was ‘Teach from your feet – not your seat,’ ” he said. “She always reminded you that the children looked up to and you have to bring your ‘A’ game every day.”

Harris, who had been ailing for several months, died Oct. 30 at Atlanta Medical Center after a heart attack.

Tartt, who was also her grand-godson, will speak at her Nov. 7 home-going service at Wheat street Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta.The Narvie J. Harris Elementary School Chorus will perform at the service.

This week, family, friends and former co-workers called Harris “an extradordinary woman,” and a “great lady.”

Former school board member Frances Edwards, who chaired the committee that named the $10.8 million Narvie J. Harris Elementary School in her honor, said she respected and adored Harris for her class and character, and her commitment to children.

“She was an educator who never stopped teaching,” Edwards said. “She never stopped being a supporter of DeKalb County Schools and she took every opportunity to be in the schools interacting with the children and teachers.”

Edwards said Harris was so active, you forgot her age.

“We just thought she would be here forever,” she said Wednesday. “She was just a phenomenal lady. She lived her life and made a difference.”

When the DeKalb School Board named the 99,000-square-foot elementary school for Harris, it set aside a long-standing policy that prohibited naming schools after living individuals. When the vote was taken, Edwards said everyone erupted in applause.

“There was no opposition to it,” she remembered. “Everyone thought it was well-deserved.”

Over the years, Harris garnered many other awards. In 1985, two years after her retirement, the School Board named her honorary associate superintendent, acknowledging the enormous administrative role she played in educating children between 1944 and 1983.

In February 2008, 4th District Congressman Hank Johnson honored her at his first-ever Black History Month Program.

Over the nearly four decades that she worked with the school system, Harris documented the fledgling attempts made to educate the county’s black children. Between 1944 and 1969, she served as Jeanes Supervisor, named for philanthropist and humanitarian Ann T. Jeanes, who funded black teachers to educate black children in the south.

Harris’ first office was in a funeral home in Decatur.

Many of the photographs she took of the early days of teaching black DeKalb students were published in her 1999 book “African-American Education in DeKalb County,” which offered a personal recollection of her tenure as an educator and administrator.

On the poor conditions of the one-room school buildings where she and other early black teachers taught children, she said she looked through the roof and taught astronomy, and looked through the floors and taught botany.

Famous for her gems of wisdom, everyone has a favorite Narvie saying.

Edwards said one of Harris’ favorite sayings was “you can no more teach what you do not know than you can come back from where you did not go.”

Steen “News Lady” Miles, a retired Atlanta television anchor, called Harris “a teacher’s teacher.”

“One of her favorite saying was ‘Teach each child as if today is yours and that child’s last,’” she said.

Harris was born Dec. 17, 1916, in Wrightsville, Ga., to James E. and Anna Jordan. Her family moved to Atlanta when she was a small child and she and her four siblings matriculated through the Atlanta Public Schools. Her father owned a department store on Auburn Avenue.

She graduated from Clark College and received a master’s degree in administration and supervision from Atlanta University. Harris completed graduate work at numerous colleges.

She began her stellar career with DeKalb School System as Supervisor of Instruction for the Negro Schools in 1944. She was an active volunteer Wheat Street Baptist where she was a long-time member. She also volunteered with a host of community groups.

Harris was preceded in death by Joseph L. Harris, her husband of 42 years. She is survived by her daughter Narvie Daryll Griffin, her son-in-law Mike Griffin, her grandson Michael Griffin and her brother Robert Jordan and his wife, Edna.

Narvie J. Harris will be remembered at two services:

On Nov. 6, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will honor her with an Omega Omega Ceremony at 6 p.m. at the Willie Watkins Funeral Home in West End Atlanta.

Her home-going service will be 11 a.m. on Nov. 7 at Wheat Street Baptist Church, on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, with Rev. Dr. Michael N. Harris officiating.

She will be laid to rest at Southview Cemetery, between her mother and her husband of 42 years.