Big changes are on the way to the school this year. Principal Mr. Dave Worland provided his insight.

Q: What are the overall big events happening this school year?

A: “We are now coming off of our culmination of our 100-year celebration, so that’s behind us. We have celebrated the 100 years, so now the focus is starting anew for the next 100 years. The first exciting thing that we’ll start to look at will be the expansion of our facilities, primarily our Innovation Center. Hopefully through this first semester we finish the planning and the drawing and all the coordinating of it and the final fund-raising. Then second semester we’ll actually look at starting to possibly renovate and break ground so we can start to actually see it take place.”

Q: Where will the Innovation Center be located?

A: “It will be an extension of Kelly Hall and it will move toward the open grassy area going toward Loretto Hall. It won’t even go all the way to the sidewalk; it’s probably going to be three-quarters of the way to the sidewalk. There will still be that open space that’s between the Student Life Center and Loretto Hall in that far corner. It won’t be closed in, (so) you’ll still have some space there.”

Q: What are your administrative goals for the year?

A: “My administrative goals for the year are we’ve got a new team, our Academic Innovation Team, so one of my goals is to see the transition of our academic leadership be embraced by those members that have been selected and interviewed prepared to come up with new and exciting ways to educate our students. It’s kind of both at the same time by design, so we’re going to build the Innovation Center and we’re bringing on new educators in this AIT team to come up with innovative ways to better serve our students both academically, spiritually and emotionally. 

Q: What are your feelings or thoughts about this year?

A: “I’m so thrilled right now to just see the energy of our students, both our upperclassmen and our sophomores and our new freshmen. Just the feel and the excitement that I’ve received on the interests and the motivation of our students, I’m very excited about what I’m seeing. I’m looking forward to working with those students and the new teachers.

We’ve got a wonderful group of new teachers who I know are going to fit in really well and bring some freshness and zeal to our academic leadership, our role modeling and our educational processes. I’m looking forward to a great start, it’s already been a great start. (We’re) looking at ways we can update and look at some positive changes to take us into a new era. We’re in our second 100 years, (so) we want to make it very well known that we are going to study the best practices that are out there and model those.”

Q: Are there any other modifications in the works for the year?

A: “I will especially look at our design of how we will utilize what I call my Administrative Leadership Team. I’m going to really study hard the restructuring of that so maybe we can, again, better serve students. So I might get a new design, and I’m looking to get a new model of how the administrative leadership can be structured so that we can get more productivity.

One thing, for example, is (Vice Principal) Mr. (Jere) Kubuske (has moved). His wife took a softball coaching job at a Division I college up in Wisconsin so he’s going to obviously want to join his family up there. I’m not going to replace his position.

What I’m going to do is take maybe three or four of our existing educators that are here and divide up his job so that we can get some people doing it at a part time level, but they would still stay as a teacher, or as a coach or as another employee here. I want to do more of that rather than just keeping the team the way it is, keeping my ALT doing the same things. I want to try new things. I think the spirit of where I’m going in my role as principal is I want to try new things.”

Q: Is there anything else important readers should know?

A: “I would just say the more I can get our student body involved in their school, their input would be critical. I want to know what they think would make a better environment, both academically, spiritually and athletically. So I’m going to constantly be looking for ways our students can have input so that we can improve their school.”