What big things can students look forward to for the rest of this school year and going into next year?
“I’m in the middle of wrapping things up for seniors, so we are seeing through a few new changes for our seniors [like the Day of Service, student-faculty softball game and Senior Stroll], so that’s exciting. Not only is it exciting for our seniors when we implement something new I always look at it as a long term improvement. This is the first graduation we’re having on the new field, so it’s the first big event we’re having out there. We want to make sure it’s good and it looks good. As for the rest of the year, it’s important to see through the rest of the year and transition the juniors into the role of the leaders of the school which happens almost instantaneously.”
How do you feel about GonkPlex wrapping up?
“[Seeing GonkPlex at Carnival] was really gratifying. I was looking around and seeing all the pieces of this facility that we’ve been planning for months come into full form. There was a moment when I was standing on the top of the grandstands and could scan the whole facility and there was so much happening… It was really a moment where I felt like the facility itself arrived. As much as it was a hardship to get the athletic complex through and the construction was difficult with parking and not having home games, it took less than a year from when they first put shovels in the ground on June 7 of last year.”
This year you hoped to see an increase in school events and spirit. Has that happened?
“I think we’ve tried things and sometimes they haven’t panned out to have huge numbers, but there are other things that have turned out to be very exciting. For example, we did a s’mores night in the fall that was really charming and lovely, but only 30 to 40 kids came out for it. We did the rock-paper-scissors, and the whole school got super involved with it. You don’t quite know what will stick and be attractive. I will say once in a while you get something where you feel like you’ve caught lightning in a bottle which was that rock-paper-scissors tournament. I’d love to see more events like that.”
What was the biggest success this year?
“It would probably be that rock-paper-scissors thing. Other than that, it was a pretty stable year. A lot of our successes in an ordinary year are that our students come prepared, they do hard work, they get into good colleges, they go onto careers after they leave here and I feel like our baseline for excellence is quite high. I think this was a good year, and at the same time we’re always looking to improve and add things the students will enjoy.”
If you could go back and change one thing about the school year what would it be?
“Having the post-prom party not happen this year was a reality that the APTO and I agreed upon. For our ability to quickly build something new, exciting and different, we just didn’t have enough time. I wish we had had a little more time and I wish I had communicated more proactively that the old event was really expensive and hard to staff and fundraise for. I wish we could’ve done that differently.”
What are your summer plans?
“I go camping with my wife and my daughters, so we will do that. I have a junior daughter who’s in the middle of her college search, so we will do some college visits. The last month of school is always so busy that right when school’s out we do a lot of catching up in a really quiet slow pace in the building. My plans often include work, but the work is slower-paced, which is nice.”
Is there anything else you would like to add?
“Just like everybody on the planet Earth, coming out of the pandemic which was still not too long ago, we’re still seeing what the pandemic has formed. I look at the senior class. They were the first class I had, and they were freshmen when I came in as principal, so I feel like we all went through this together. I feel like each year the return to normalcy has gotten closer and closer.”
