PHOTO BY CLAIRE FRANELL
The three finalists for the position of principal at Sandstone Middle School spoke about their backgrounds and their goals during a public “meet & greet” in Sandstone’s library Thursday.
Each of the three candidates — Lori Mills, Keith Holman and Larry Usher — entered the library separately to take turns speaking to guests. The candidates were given five minutes to introduce themselves, 20 minutes to answer questions from the audience, and a few moments to make closing statements.
Following each candidate’s presentation, members of the audience were asked to fill out a response card ranking their agreement with the following statements: 1) The candidate appears to have the appropriate skill set to be a successful principal at Sandstone Middle School; 2) The candidate appears to be a good fit for Sandstone’s staff and students; and 3) The candidate appears to be a good fit for the Hermiston community.
Eastern Oregon native Lori Mills has a background teaching PE and health, including two years as a seventh through 10th grade PE and health teacher in Irrigon.
She then worked for two years as part of an alternative education program in the Athena-Weston School District, helping students who didn’t receive much academic support at home. “That program was the most fulfilling in my career so far,” she said.
Mills has been principal of Weston Middle School for six years. This experience in a small school district has allowed her to do “a little bit of everything.”
Mills has played a role in the middle school’s enrichment program, teacher collaboration, student discipline, and the district safety committee, and has served as district test coordinator.
She places a strong emphasis on the importance of family.
When asked about her methods of professional development, Mills said that Weston Middle School does not have a professional learning community (PLC) in place but does offer professional development to staff in the form of state in-service days.
“I’m very open with staff about if they need a professional day and if they want to go to the Hermiston School District and shadow another teacher, or if they want to attend a professional training in Pendleton,” she said. Mills said she is impressed with the Hermiston School District and the direction it is taking.
“This district is going places,” Mills said. “The fact that you want to be the premier school district in the state — I would love to be a part of that.”
Holman graduated from New Mexico University with a degree in agricultural business. He moved to the Finley area in 1997 and has been a Career and Technical Education teacher at River View High School in Finley for nine years. Holman also serves as part-time vice principal to the elementary, middle and high schools.
He is on the district’s Advisory Committee and has been working to implement a new evaluation program based on the Danielson model.
Holman runs the GEAR UP after-school program through a grant from Washington State University. “We’ve done everything from contracts with students and parents to just bringing in students that have issues with grades or not enough time in class, or have to make up a test,” he said. He also runs Finley’s Friday Night School program.
“If there’s something going on, I want to be involved,” he said. “(Running the afterschool programs) gives me a good temperature of parents, community, the students, what’s going on.”
When asked how he approaches professional development with his staff, Holman explained that Finley began having early release days on Wednesdays in efforts to collaborate with teachers as much as possible during the transition to the district’s new evaluation system.
Holman also explained a bit about the AVID and GLAD strategies which Finley has implemented.
“AVID and GLAD strategies help students become responsible for what they’re doing,” he said. “We’re trying to get students ready for college.” This includes teaching the students different ways to take notes as well as taking them to visit universities and community colleges or having college representatives visit Finley.
Holman expressed his admiration for Sandstone’s success. “Your school is phenomenal. Your test scores are through the roof. I would love to be a part of this school.”
Usher has worked in the Hermiston School District for 12 years. After five years of teaching social studies and coaching basketball at Hermiston High School, he became the district’s career education coordinator at HHS. In 2010 he became dean of students at Sandstone and became assistant principal at SMS last fall.
Usher has played an instrumental role in several positive intervention programs at SMS and has worked to improve the culture of the school through anti-bullying programs. He has also worked with current principal Neely Kirwan on professional development strategies.
“One of the reasons that I chose to apply for this position is I feel like I have a really good grasp on where this school has been in the last four and a half years that I’ve been here,” Usher said. “In doing so, I feel like I have a really good grasp on where this building is headed and what it takes to get us there.”
Usher’s goals, in the event that he is chosen to fill the position of principal, include making improvements in professional development.
“For example, continuing to work on literacy in the classroom, and hopefully moving that into practicing using what our students are learning in the classroom as far as academic vocabulary is concerned,” he said.
Thursday’s meet & greet was the third phase in the three-stage hiring process through which potential principals go. The candidates went through a preliminary screening process before sitting down for interviews with a separate committee and did a walk-through of the middle school with a different team of staff and district administrators.
“It’s a very in-depth process,” said Hermiston School District Superintendent Dr. Fred Maiocco. “It takes a couple weeks to get through.”
Maiocco will use feedback from the screening process, interviews, walk-through, and from Thursday’s public session to make the final hiring decision.
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