JOB DESCRIPTION: 

I guess if you would say technically is that I oversee the day to day, I guess, events, running of the building, management of the building. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into that so, wow, where do you start? My responsibilities would include like retaining staff, evaluating staff, I oversee the high school budget, which is a chunk of money that you got to spend smartly because we have over 1800 students in the building and 150ish staff members. What else? I don’t get involved w​ith a lot of students discipline, the associate principals do that, but you know, I collaborate with them, things like that. I kind of collaborate of oversee the professional development for the teachers. Just kind of running the day to day operations and the short term and long term planning, it’s a lot.

DO YOU DO MORE FOR STAFF THAN STUDENTS?:

Yup. I guess, yeah, to think about it, my role as far as what I do, a lot of my working is with adults, so I work with teachers and staff a lot, I work with parents a lot, things like that. You know, parent complaints, parent issues, or concerns, I make a lot of parent phone calls, meet with parents, things like that. A lot of meetings w​​ith our teachers, with our instructional coaches, we plan professional development for our teachers. Where our associate principals tend to do more on the student level, stuff like you’re tardy, you’re absent, you’re skipping class, you’ve made a bad choice. We do cover for each other, so I do that every once in a while, or if there is something bigger than we are all working on it. But yes, the majority of my work is with adults, even though I try and work hard to get to the student level because that is the fun part.

WOULD YOU CONSIDER WORKING WITH STUDENTS THE HIGHLIGHT OF YOUR DAY?

Yeah, I think as educators we all get into education because, you know, working with young people is the hope, is the future, is what we want to do. Which you know when you’re teaching a classroom, that is 99% of what you're doing, you’re working with young people, which is awesome. And then you get to sort of my scenario, the question you get asked is “why would you become a principal? Why do you want to be an administrator?” And I think for me, it probably came through my coaching, I coached earlier. I do enjoy the aspect of leading and doing some of those things. I think some of my strengths lean more towards the strategic thinking stuff. But, I definitely miss the daily interactions with students. Like when I get to get into a classroom or days like this when I am meeting with young people, those are good days. Adults' complaints, concerns and bad things, those aren’t fun days. You do that because it’s part of the job, but it’s not what I wake up and want to do. A good day for me would be going out and about, getting into classrooms and seeing students, going to our events, that’s fun.

DO YOU LIKE TO SEE HOW YOU IN YOUR POSITION CAN IMAPCT A YOUNG PERSON'S LIFE?:

Yeah, I think that’s the cool thing. I mean when we talk about retirement, people come and go, we have teachers who have been here for 30+ years or longer, and we talk about “What’s your legacy?”, when you have done this for so long as an educator. And it’s you guys. There’s not like a “Oh, I built this giant building one day” or “I invented this thing”. It’s the thousands and thousands of students who have crossed your path or gone through your classrooms or passed through your building and the hope is that we have set them up to be successful in their future. You know I go back to, “Why education?”, I think for me, I believe that it goes back to the Founding Fathers, why they created public education. And the reason was because they believed that we have to have an educated citizenry in order for the public to be successful. Education opens so many doors. It’s a tough gig right now, there’s a lot of pro/con in education. Everybody still believes that if you leave high school and whatever you do next, it gives you options. And I would hope that every young person that comes through here has choices and options. Some may go to college, some may go to careers, some may go to the military, who knows. But I hope they have choices because if you don’t graduate, I know for a fact that your choices get very limited very fast and that’s a hard life. I don’t want that.

FUN FACTS:

Free Time Activities -

Oh boy. I like to be outside when it’s nice. I play a lot of golf when I can. I don’t get to play as much as I want to because I do work year round, even though people don’t know that. I work all summer, so my contract is year round. But if I take vacation days, I try to get on the golf course. I can go after school in the spring and the summer. I do love sports. I like to go to the Iowa Hawkeye football games, I like to go watch my Kansas City Royals, my baseball team, play, I follow the Chiefs. A lot of family time, my kids are getting older. I got a kid whose a freshman, I got a kid in college, so we like to get together and do stuff. I like to cook, believe it or not. I am trying to figure out ways to do things better, ways to be healthy ish. I work out as much as I can, about 4-5 days a week. I just try to stay active.

Favorite Movie -

I have seen a lot of movies, I’m pretty old. One that I have enjoyed recently was ‘Top Gun 2’, the second ‘Top Gun’. I enjoyed it so much because I was young when the first one came out, so that was very nostalgic for me. So twenty years later they made the sequel, to get to kind of be the young person now as an adult, it was pretty cool. That was a neat thing.

Favorite TV Show -

TV is different these days because it’s all about streaming, y’know. Right now, we are watching ‘Suits’, which is old. But I’m catching up on it because I didn’t watch it when it was on. The show that I didn’t think that I would like but I was immediately addicted to was ‘Game of Thrones’. I didn’t watch it when it was on, everybody was talking about it, it became kind of this cultural icon, it was part of jokes people made, I didn’t understand it because I didn’t watch it. I started watching it, thinking I was going to hate it because I don’t usually do fantasy and all that kind of stuff. I got sucked in right away and I binged watch it over COVID. That a really, really good one. Other than that we watch all the ‘Yellowstone’ things, like all the spin offs and all of that stuff. Just always looking for the next show with a bunch of seasons.

Favorite Foods -

I debate this all the time. It’s either pizza or tacos. Taco pizza is not bad. But if I was going to eat something forever, it would probably be pizza. You can mix it up a little bit. It’s probably the safe option but I really like it. We actually just bought a pizza oven so now we make them at home.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

I am an associate principal so I am here the whole entire year, all summer, which is quite the adventure. I would say if you have to break down my job, one of my biggest responsibilities is to build the schedules and set up Infinite Campus so that when you guys get your schedules loaded, it’s all set up for you. And then I load the student schedules, counselors do a big role in making sure each individual student has what they need for credits and stuff. I just build the whole master schedule and work with the gradebook. So I do that and each associate principal has a section of the alphabet, so I am O-Z, so another huge chunk of my day is spent working with students in that group of the alphabet, so students who are struggling with getting to class or struggling with… really anything. If they have family issues or if they are having issues with a teacher in class. There’s just lots and lots of things that fall into that alphabet section. And then I’ll be out in the building talking with kids and visiting classes so eventually, we walk through and get to interact with students in classrooms and interact with teachers in that walkthrough schedule. That’s probably the 3 big components to the job.

STUDENT OUTREACH:

(Can a student come to you for the same things as they would the counselors?) Yeah! Usually counselors know a little bit more about the students because they have less students between the 5 of them, and there’s 3 of us (associate principals). They also work with the mental health side a little bit more because they are a little bit more certified in that area than an associate principal is, so, I try to connect them. Sometimes the problem gets to a point where the counselors refer them to us because it is something that is a bigger level of management so we work mostly as a team with the counselors. And then I would take any student that has been to the counselor yet but I always say ‘hey, have you talked to your counselor about this? This is something that we can get them involved with’, so that they (the student) knows that there is someone else there to support them.

FUN FACTS:

Free Time Activities -

I like to be outside so I like camping, hiking, and kayaking when I have the chance to. I have lots of pets and animals that I tend to. And I really like my dogs.

Favorite Movie -

This is a really hard one. People ask me this frequently and I can never pin one down. It’s almost embarrassing to say this but I really like Zoolander. I don’t know why, I like it was just a good time in my life, it was college for me and I just have good memories of that era. So maybe it came out in a fun time of my life. But it’s one of those classics. But it’s a stupid movie.

Favorite TV Show -

I’ll say The Office. I am binge watching that right now, actually.

Favorite Sports Teams -

Sports are not my jam. The Johnston Dragons because it’s our people. Like if I had to watch a sporting event, I’d prefer it be at least people that I know and within our school. I went to Iowa State so I have to kind of claim Iowa State because it’s the school that I went to. But I am not really into sports too much, it’s not really my jam.

Favorite Foods -

Chinese. Actually, anything that’s like Thai. Anything that’s a sauce with veggies with rice or noodles. Like you put those things together and that’s all that I need in life. So it could be Chinese or Thai or Korean.

JOB DESCRIPTION: 

Broad strokes, big picture, I serve students in the building whose last names begin with the letter H-N. And then I also serve the teachers in the business, FCS, math, P.E. & Health, and at risk. So those are kind of my rosters, my student roster and my teacher roster. And, again big picture, I connect those students and those teachers with the resources, whether they are in the building or in the community, the resources that they need to be successful. And I do student discipline too.

STUDENT OUTREACH:

Students can come to me if they have a situation that happens outside of the classroom and they don’t know who else to go to. If it’s in the classroom maybe you can go to your teacher or if you have a situation in the classroom and the teacher recommends that you come and see me. They can come to me for, well a lot of times they come to me about parking. Unfortunately, I am not much help there. They come to me where I get to direct them elsewhere, right if they have, early on there’s a lot of schedule changes and of course I have to send them to the counseling office, for stuff like that. Sometimes they just come to me for support, whether that’s sort of emotional support or academic support, different things. And I can try to help them or I can try and put them in touch with someone who can.

FUN FACTS:

Free Time Activities -

What do I like to do or what do I get to do. So I like to golf, I just don’t get to do much of it because I have 4 young kids. My oldest is in 6th grade, my son, I have a 4th grade daughter, and I have boy- girl twins that are in 1st grade. And they are all involved in youth activities. Softball, soccer, dance, football, all of those things and I coach, I don’t coach dance, I coach them whenever I possibly can, I coach as many of those teams as I can because I really enjoy being around them and being around their friends. So that’s what I get to do in my free time. But I like to golf and I like to generally just be outdoors, I grew up out in the countryside, so I miss being outdoors.

Favorite Movie -

That feels like it needs like qualifiers. I love movies, right, so I have favorites in this genre and… ok, but just one, that’s hard. Remember I am 44 I have had 34 years of watching movies. There’s a lot of movies that you can watch. It’s not Barbie, I haven’t seen that. It’s not Oppenheimer, although I do really want to see that. I want to see them both. I’ll see Barbie. I really like, and when it’s on tv, I will never miss an opportunity to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That’s one of my favorites.

Favorite TV Show -

It’s such a cliche for a middle aged, white guy, but it’s probably Ted Lasso.

Favorite Sports Teams -

Probably the Iowa Hawkeyes, followed closely by the Boston Red Sox. I have been a Boston Red Sox fan since I was 6. But I have been a Hawkeye fan since I was born because of my parents. And I do love the Hawks, I was born into a Hawkeye House.

Favorite Foods -

Oh, Pizza! I know, right? It’s boring but think about it, no matter what you are in the mood for, you can put that on a pizza and it’s delicious, right? And somehow they have invented breakfast pizza, which is even better than real pizza. Yeah, oh, it’s pizza. But it’s all pizzas. Fang’s, Weird Pizzas are amazing. But I also just like Pepperoni Pizza from Breado.

JOB DESCRIPTION: 

My job is many, many hats. I put out fires, I am a disciplinarian, I do bullying and harassment stuff, I do Special Ed. stuff, I oversee most of the Special Ed., things that happen whether it’s teachers, we evaluate teachers, we take care of the parking lot. I mean there is so many hats that we wear, it’s like nothing is the same everyday. It’s completely different every single day when I come to work.

STUDENT OUTREACH:

Students come to me for many things. They come to me to maybe try to get a class change, I have to approve things like that. They may come to me for help or support whether it be academically or emotionally or mentally. They come to me for attendance reasons or disciplinary reasons, their parents come to me to try to seek help for their child. There’s lots of reasons why students come to me. And one of the things that I try to do is always have an open door for kids to come in with whatever I can help them with. Which is why I got into this business over 20 years ago, was to help kids, help families who need a little extra help or want help to get through school and to make things work for them. It’s why I do what I do.

FUN FACTS:

Free Time Activities -

Well I don’t have a lot of free time. Spend time with my family, my wife, my two children, who are grown now and in the adult world. I like to fish, walk the dogs, anything that’s relaxing is what I like to do.

Favorite Movie -

My favorite movie- one of my favorite movies, like a series of movies, is Ocean’s, like Ocean’s 11, I like those kinds of movies. You can start watching them at any time and then I never can stop watching them.

Favorite TV Show -

College football, college basketball. I don’t know, I don’t really watch tv. The only time the tv is on, is if there is a sporting event and usually I’m not like sitting and watching, I just have it on in the background. So probably sports.

Favorite Sports Teams -

Believe it or not, I am a Penn State football fan. I went to a Penn State football game, I can’t remember what year, we went out there and I had been out there 3 times. I love it so much, it’s so amazing. Like it’s blue and white everywhere, it’s amazing. It’s awesome. They are my favorite college football team. I am a big Iowa State fan. So I enjoy Iowa State football and basketball. But I would be a Duke Blue Devils Basketball fan. But I follow Iowa State pretty closely.

Favorite Foods -

I like a lot of foods. Probably my standby, go to, is just having a good Casey’s Pizza, which is awesome. I think Casey’s Pizza is one of the best. Taco Pizza or Pepperoni.