As soon as Harrisonburg High School principal Irene Reynolds announced she would be retiring at the end of January 2011, Dr. Scott Kizner and the rest of the administrative staff began an extensive search for a new high school principal. Thirty initial applicants were screened down to 15 hopefuls and then later cut down to five potential principals brought in for interviews, but Kizner decided to try a new tactic.
Rather than immediately hiring a new principal, Kizner has chosen to reopen and re-advertise the position in January, and pick a new principal by June 2011. In the meantime, Dr. Perry Pope will serve as the schools interim principal over a six month period.
“Dr. Kizner is taking his time,” Pope explained, of the delay in hiring a new principal. “He wants to find the best possible candidate for the high school, and they are doing an extensive search of people all across the nation. A school like HHS needs a dynamic instructional leader and [Kizner] really wants to do the job justice. In the long run, this will do a greater service to the students.”
Pope brings with him thirty years of experience as a principal in five different school systems—three in Texas and two in Virginia—and seven years as a math teacher. Until a few months ago, he was retired, but an encouraging call from Kizner brought him back onto the education scene.
“I was busy playing golf and doing stuff retired people do,” Pope joked. “But my wife told me to give it a shot.”
So he did. In the beginning of December, Pope met with Kizner and Reynolds and took at tour of the entire school. For him, seeing the school and students in person was the absolute “selling point”.
“It’s exciting to see the school,” Pope said. “It’s a fantastic school, and everyone I’ve met is terrific. This is going to be a great opportunity. Being a principal is the best job, and I loved every day of it.”
Pope only has six months to work at HHS, though, starting officially on Jan 10. As an interim principal, he will spend more time monitoring, supervising, and encouraging the student and staff body rather than changing any policies. As he describes, a full time principal must focus on assessing where the school is at a certain point, and in what ways it came be improved. But instead of making any drastic decisions, Pope will work as a short-term planner and concentrate on maintaining the high standards for the rest of the year until a new principal moves in. But if there are any corrections in behavior or habit that he feels should be made, he will not hesitate to make recommendations, he contended.
And what happens if no new principal is chosen?
“Of course there will be,” Pope laughed. “There are highly qualified and great candidates out there who would love to work at a school like this.”
Though Pope is not used to waking up as early as he will have to come January, he is still looking forward to returning to a high school setting. (Bus duty, for example, may appear boring, but he finds it fascinating: “Exciting and interesting things happen, sometimes,” he said.)
