August 21, 2001|By Tanika White | Tanika White,SUN STAFF
Here's an idea for a new fall television show; let's call it ... Howard County Public: Two teachers come up through the ranks of a suburban Maryland school system, becoming successful assistant principals known for treating children as individuals and rallying staff and community support.
Just as they get comfortable in their spots, the district's superintendent promotes them, shaking up everything they've known. He asks that the two swap high schools - one of which is relatively homogenous, the other very diverse - and that they fill vacancies left behind by two popular and effective principals.
And, as an interesting side story, let's say one is an accomplished singer, the other a talented guitarist.
The scenario is a real-life drama that will be unfolding this school year at Mount Hebron and Wilde Lake high schools.
Veronica C. "Ronnie" Bohn took over as principal at Mount Hebron on July 1, after a five-year stint as assistant principal at Wilde Lake. John R. Quinn left as assistant principal at Mount Hebron after one year to head Wilde Lake.
Bohn leaves the tutelage of the much-loved Roger Plunkett and replaces the esteemed Adrian Kaufman at Mount Hebron. Quinn steps out from under Kaufman's auspices and must fill Plunkett's larger-than-life shoes at Wilde Lake.
"I've got pretty big feet," Quinn said with a laugh this week from his new office in the heart of Columbia. "I look at it that I'm my own person. I have my own strengths."
Quinn draws much of his experience from his days at Howard High School, where he spent nine years as a science teacher and football coach. Quinn has been in the system 23 years.
"I see this as an extension of many things I was trying to do as a coach," he said.
"You can affect people's lives by trying to make them better at what they do. You put them into positions where they can excel. Administration, if done right, is some of the same things."
When he first started as Howard's football coach, after teaching science at Hammond High School and Oakland Mills Middle School, Quinn said he thought athletes would immediately respond to him because he was the coach.
"I thought they were going to listen to me, do what I told them to do. Well, that didn't work," Quinn said. "That experience helps me know now that just because I'm a principal doesn't mean things are always going to go the way I want them to."
That's why he's taking his time to get to know the staff at Wilde Lake, which - under Plunkett's leadership - has been credited with turning around the once-troubled high school.
He said he knows the staff is exceptional - his oldest son graduated from there last year and is now in college in Delaware - so he wants to hear their ideas about how to improve a school that has become one of the county's best.
That's not to say Quinn doesn't have ideas of his own.
At some point, he'd like to ask teachers about the idea of restructuring course offerings so that classes are more focused and streamlined for students, creating different "pathways" of learning - almost like majors and minors.
"Once a kid feels strongly that the courses that he's taking are all leading toward something, whether that's a major in college or a particular job experience, you're going to make school a much better experience for that kid," Quinn said.
Bohn is feeling her way around as well.
As she decorates her western Ellicott City office with one-room schoolhouse memorabilia, she's reminded of her own philosophy about children - the one that kept her in education for 30 years.
In one-room schoolhouses, teachers had to view students as individuals, take them where they were and move them along, despite the age or level of the child sitting next to them.
"I think it's the biggest challenge teachers face today - knowing their students individually," Bohn said. "Clearly, when there's a positive connection between teachers and students, the teaching and learning is better."
That's why making the switch from Wilde Lake to Mount Hebron challenges her in a good way, she said.
Mount Hebron's student population is more than 75 percent white and about 8 percent African-American. Wilde Lake, on the other hand, is about 57 percent white and 33 percent African-American.
"At a place like Wilde Lake, because of the diversity, it was easy to see that we have to treat each person separately. I don't want to forget that here," she said.
"I'm adjusting to the fact that the population isn't as diverse, but I'm also aware that the needs of high school kids are consistent from school to school. As young adults, they need to be appreciated and valued and liked and loved. Kids are all the same in that sense."
Some parents openly questioned Superintendent John R. O'Rourke's decision to switch the two assistant principals after Kaufman was selected to be principal of the county's newest high school, Reservoir, and Plunkett was named assistant superintendent.
