Centrals Principal Department

Our principals have important roles in our everyday lives at school, but who are they? What makes their jobs so important and vital to every student at Central High School? I interviewed Mr. Pederson, Mrs. Antunez, and Mrs. Waight about their challenges in their jobs, advice they have for students, and why they became a principal. It was an amazing experience to dive deeper into the lives of our principals at Central, to understand them and the “why’s”. For example, “why did you decide to become a principal?” and learn more about them. First to be interviewed is Ms. Antunez. 

“why did you become a principal?”

“I decided to become a principal because first, I love education. call me crazy, but I am a believer in that education can give us so many more opportunities, versus you know, growing up without it and I believe that the power of our work is really impactful in the lives of our students and the future and I think that comes from my own family experience. like I grew up with family members who hadn’t even finished elementary and then people who hadn't even finished middle school. So having witnessed that and having now witnessed and experienced what it's like to have even just a highschool diploma and how many more doors can be opened for you.”

“How long have you been a principal?”

“This is only my second year, so i’m a baby in it, yeah.”

“What are the hardest challenges that you’ve had to overcome as a principal?”

“I think one of the hardest challenges for me, and every principal is going to give you a different answer but this is just based on my family experience. I have 2 little ones so i’m a mom of 2 and one of the hardest things, not because like, “Aw this sucks,” or “Oh this is so hard, I can't believe i’m doing it,” but it makes me sad, sometimes, to have to leave my kids so many days in the evening. So that part is challenging, balancing the time like how long you're away from your family. The other challenging piece is your doing so many things at once, I haven’t had lunch yet but i’m going into another meeting after [this meeting]. Your work schedule is all over the place and it's super busy so that's a challenge, but I like it, I like being busy.” 

“What advice do you have for Central Students?”

“Don’t worry about what other people think, for sure, do what you love, do what you enjoy, try out new things, new sports, new clubs, like the whole thing. Have a good time doing it, I think some people think that school’s boring, and that it’s not fun and it's all about homework and reading but there’s a lot more to school and you just gotta go out there and try it.”

Next, I interviewed Mrs. Waight.

“My first question is, why did you become a principal?”

“So, oh boy. It’s hard to say, a little bit. Like, okay so my really good friend Ms. Larson, she and I kind of; she was an english teacher, I was a math teacher here and we felt like we were talking an awful lot about problems the school has and the district has but not really getting involved and solving those problems, like we could; we were involved in solving problems it wasn’t like we were just ignoring, but we just felt like we didn’t have enough; we weren’t really in the right place to really help things get better, and so at one point she and I decided to kind of try this thing together, this principal thing, and she ended up getting a job here as an assistant principal before I did. So I stayed in the classroom, and that was over COVID and all that kind of stuff and I think the main thing I started to notice as a person who had a really good friend doing this work and me not doing this work, I got to see both kind of ways of looking at a school and it just made me feel like I really wanted to be in a position where I could make some bigger differences and I feel like in my classroom, I finally figured out, and I really don’t want this to sound like bragging but, I had figured out what it means to be a good teacher, what it felt like to be a good teacher, to watch students do better as a result of my teaching and I just felt like if I could become an assistant principal, that I could teach other teachers that too.”

“What are your biggest challenges?”

“I think the chaotic nature of the job. That I never really know what a day is going to look like. I have a bunch of duties, things that i’m supposed to do, but the thing i’ve had to adjust to the most is that in a classroom, I know that at this time of day, this group is coming and I know what i’m gonna tell them and how were gonna you know, go together, like I get to plan out my whole day and within that, there is always chaos and little things that happen. with this job, literally I never know what's going to happen all day.”

“What do you like most about being a principal?”

“I will forever and ever have my favorite thing about being an educator is the kids. I just think that especially high school students  are at this really beautiful time in their lives that feels terrible to them, but if they have good people who truly care about the fact that your going from like really young, to practically an adult, actually an adult in most cases and that you need good people to support you in that it’s just like a really amazing journey for me, year after year to watch students just grow up into wonderful people. Yeah that’s what I like most, my greater ability to be good for kids.”

“What advice do you have for students throughout highschool”

“I think, that the best advice I could give a central student to believe in yourself and believe in the process that there is a reason why these folks come to school and make lessons and be part of your day like i’m talking about teachers, of course and staff and everybody, there is a reason for all the things we do here and that sometimes those reasons aren’t clear but that it’s all kind of worthwhile.”

Lastly, I interviewed our principal, Mr. Pedersen.

“Why did you become a principal?” 

“I wanted to be able to impact education in a broader sense than more so than a teacher if that makes sense. ‘Cause as a teacher you can only impact so many kids per day, and as an administrator you oversee a lot more staff who oversee a lot more kids to make sure kids have what they need. At the end of the day our students have all the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful human beings.”

“How do you balance home life and work life?”

“That’s really tough, you have to really like make a concerted effort to do that, it’s really easy to take things home from work and sometimes I drive about 25 minutes to work so it’s kind of a nice time to decompress, so by the time i’m home if there was a rough day for example, I can decompress after that and be able to connect with my family and relax, but for the most part it’s the battle, this is a very time consuming job and it’s one that I really love and I enjoy doing, my wife is an educator as well, so we kinda balance each other out.

“What advice would you give to Central Students?”

“Show up everyday, be prepared for school, do your best, ask questions, get engaged. I mean- those are the things I would say if anybody was asking. This is your school, and you're going to get out of it as much as you put into it, so I think the big thing is to be here everyday, show up; it’s like work, show up, be present, and be part of your school. I think that’s really important, especially now because we have a big problem with attendance in our building, I wouldn’t say it's just here, it's all across the country for the most part it’s our main focus where our regular attendance rate is pretty low meaning kids that attend at 90% or better it’s quite a bit lower than it was last year so that’s a focus that we have this year is to make sure our kids are here because once they're here, we can teach ya, but if you’re not here, we can’t teach ya. Show up everyday, be prepared, and make it your school.”

“What are your biggest challenges as a principal?”

“I think the biggest challenge I face is not having enough time to complete all the things that I need to get done.”

I loved being able to talk to the principals of Central, to learn more about them and dive deeper into their lives. Now, all of Central’s students can have a deeper appreciation for our staff who work incredibly hard to support students and us as people, so thank you so much to all Mrs. Antunez, Mrs. Waight, and Mr. Pedersen for taking the time to let me interview you guys and for allowing me to share your stories.