Mount Si High School’s role as a bridge to the community was made clear by all three of the finalists in Snoqualmie Valley Schools’ hunt for a new principal. The job search narrowed a field of 19 applicants down to three—John Belcher, Terry Cheshire and Nicole MacTavish—who each spent dozen-hour days in Snoqualmie earlier this week, getting to know the school and district.

The all-day interviews culminated with evening talks with parents, staff and students in the Mount Si library, where candidates made their cases, shared passions and explored how they would change Mount Si for the better.

Bringing change

John Belcher, principal at Omak High School, went first, standing before more than dozen visitors Monday, May 9, in the school library. A former graphic designer and real estate agent, Belcher holds a teaching and youth sports coaching background.

Questioned about how he would balance sports and academics, Belcher promoted athletic engagement, and the idea that high school is about more than just academics.

“Research is clear: Kids who are involved succeed at higher rates than students who aren’t,” he said. “When students are in season, grades go up. Eligibility requirements are what gets those students to perform.”

Belcher grew up in West Africa, where he “was definitely celebrated as something curious but accepted.” He returned to Seattle at a time when students were being bused from the Central District to more affluent schools.

“There were cultural divides,” he said. “I felt out of my skin.” From that experience, Belcher said he learned the value “of teachers who really knew what diversity meant.”

“People ask me, why Mount Si?” Belcher said. “It’s always attractive to look at a high-performing school.”

Eating dinner at a Snoqualmie restaurant earlier that day, Belcher struck up a conversation with his high-school age server, Sam, who was interested in a career in science.

“He talked about his frustration in getting the coursework he needs,” Belcher said. “He’s got a plan. But he’s in a bit of a panic: Will I get what I really need?'”

He said teachers need to explore unconventional ways to bring students back to math and science, and ensure that freshman students understand how to navigate the system “before throwing them into it.”

“Your community is proud of this school. They want good things for your kids,” Belcher said. “Recognize that your kids have a voice. Sam had a lot of great ideas.”

Belcher shared strategies for promoting change, engaging learners and connecting people to their schools. One strategy, soliciting feedback from seniors just before they graduate, has sent powerful messages to Omak educators.

Concerns and comments come from students “who have met every requirement,” Belcher said. “There’s nothing you can say that will influence the outcome of your graduation.” The answers, he said, were sometimes hard to swallow.

“We get whole-hearted, brutally honest feedback,” Belcher said. “It’s hard to deliver that to staff. It can get personal.”

Belcher, teachers and a non-quorum group of two school board members go over the responses. Teachers discuss whether student concerns need to be addressed as a team; if the same concerns keep coming up, Belcher knows that change is needed.

Belcher uses his master schedule to ensure students get the courses they need and want. He said he visits every classroom at least four times each week, looking to see that goals are clear and students are engaged.

Advisory periods

After a six-year effort to set them up, Omak has used twice-a-month advisory periods over the last year and a half. Belcher related how he recruited secretaries, librarians and non-teaching staff, along with teachers, to mentor small groups of students, helping them navigate high school. The process educated staff and students alike on basics like what a GPA is and how to read a transcript.

“The things we assumed, nobody got,” Belcher said. “The whole level of building expectations, of wanting to guide, came around.”

As a result, achievement also rose. More students started taking challenging classes, like math, science and world languages.

“Just about all of my kids are now taking four years of math,” he said. “Our advanced coursework has really taken off. You don’t need a teacher’s signature to get into that program. You just need the desire to go after it.”

Belcher also shared Omak’s site council model, where teachers, staff and students share decision-making duties with parents. He said most teachers want to change for the better, but some don’t know how.

“My first step is to find out what my administrative team knows about instruction,” he said. “There are certain things that are not negotiable,” such as engaged behavior. Students “have to know that they can’t opt out.”

Successes and failures

As a finalist for the position of Mount Si High School Principal, Terry Cheshire in meeting with community members Tuesday evening was as frank about his failures as he was about his successes.

He counts Jackson High School in the Everett School District, where he is now principal, as only a partial success, because the school’s math scores are not where he’d like them to be—Cheshire is a former math teacher. However, the school’s transformation from a “highly-underperforming high school,” in the spring of 2003, was in every other way a success.

It was also just the challenge Cheshire had been seeking when he realized school administrative work was not for him. He’d been working as a director of instruction, in charge of curriculum and assessment of secondary schools in the Auburn School District, when he decided to apply for the Jackson position.

“I missed students. I lost a sense of what I was supposed to do because I missed working with the kids,” he said, adding “I knew the history of Jackson, and I thought it would be a great challenge for me to see if I could go in and turn the school around.”

When he started, he said, the staff was demoralized, the community felt excluded, and the district had indicated the school was failing. The on-time graduation rate was 70 percent, and there were only eight Advanced Placement class offerings. He spent his first two years rebuilding relationships with the community, and working with the staff to do the same. As of last year, he said, on-time graduation had increased to 91 percent—96 percent including the extended rate, AP class offerings had been expanded, reading  and science scores improved, and “right now, the community has pride in that school.”

Jackson High School is also the only high school in Snohomish County to achieve the status of Adequate Yearly Progress from the Department of Education.

“I’m not proud of that fact… because we have some very good high schools in Snohomish County, but we were the only high school that made AYP.”

Asked by students why he’s ready to leave Jackson, Cheshire felt that the school might need a new set of skills now.

“I’m not sure I’m the person that can continue to drive that school as well as it needs to go,” he explained.

Cheshire’s directness would also be apparent in his administrative style. Serving the students is his bottom line, so, his answer to a question about handling division within staff and in the community focused on students. He said he’d seek out the representatives of each group and discuss their concerns with them.

“It takes time, it takes the willingness to listen, and it takes some people having to hear things maybe they don’t want to hear,” he said.

Cheshire, 55, has worked in education for 28 years, after a four-year stint as a flight attendant. Many family members are in education, too. “It’s genetics,” he said. He considers education “a true opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives,” but says it’s only the second most important job in the world, after being a parent.

Rebuilding trust

Nicole MacTavish was direct about the need to rebuild trust in the high school among the Valley’s splintered communities.

As Assistant Director of Inclusive Education at Kent School District, where she leads that district’s special education efforts, MacTavish has worked to bridge the varied linguistic and economic divides there. She came away from the interview process in Snoqualmie Valley School District believing that the Valley’s varied groups, from neighborhoods to parents, teachers, students and administrators, must come together and agree on basics, while celebrating strengths.

This district’s growing diversity, she said, creates opportunities for programs like arts and technology that smaller schools don’t have.

She wants students to know  that “they’re going to have a square chance here at Mount Si.”

With a young son and a husband who is retired from the Navy, MacTavish said she is committed to making the Valley her home, if chosen.

“I want to be a part of the district I work in,” she said.

Freshman campus

A former associate principal, providing instructional leadership, at Oak Harbor High School, an assistant principal at Blue Harbor Middle School in the Oak Harbor district, MacTavish brought some first-hand experience on how satellite schools—somewhat similar to what is being envisioned at Mount Si High School and Snoqualmie Middle School—are developed.

School construction caused Oak Harbor to open a satellite facility for freshmen and sophomores in 2008. MacTavish said that efforts to involve parents in planning from the start cleared roadblocks and eased the transformation.

“At first, the community didn’t understand what we were doing,” she said. “By the time that all came together, parents understood it, they believed it. We were able to start bringing results to the community.”

Those results included sending more prepared freshmen up the academic ladder. Teachers found that they had to teach discrete skills, such as note-taking, time management and how to access help or look up grades online, to turn ninth graders into high school learners.

“You had more people caring about them and tracking them in the new campus,” MacTavish said.

Asked about her approach to discipline, MacTavish said she tries to ensure teens understand the consequences of their actions. Things aren’t always black and white, she added.

“We’re teaching life lessons,” she said. “We’re still growing young adults.”

Questioned by parent Carmen Villenueva on how she would be able to command respect among colleagues, many of them older men, MacTavish said she takes a collegiate approach.

“My style is very direct,” she said. “There’s no games or going around. They know exactly what I expect.”

Teachers, she said, “are in this business because they believe they can made a difference.”

Airing concerns over communication between teachers and parents, resident Patricia Howland asked how MacTavish would ensure families and teachers work together.

“I feel like we’re being taken out of the system,” Howland said.

MacTavish said it’s not always clear, to students and parents, what their role is in education.

“Parents say ‘I’d like to help, I don’t know how,'” she said. “That’s on me and my leadership team, to find out how we can match them” with a program, teacher or activity.

Making a choice

Participants at each forum were asked to note their perceived strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, then hand in a form to administrators.

Superintendent Joel Aune and Assistant Superintendent Don McConkey will check references and potentially visit the candidates’ home districts.

“What you share with us is important and valued,” McConkey said.

Aune will announce his choice to the Snoqualmie Valley School Board on Thursday, May 26.

“The number one goal is the get the very best match for Mount Si,” he said.

Learn more about the principal search at www.svsd410.org.