How has your experience been at Lively Middle School ?
I have been working at Lively for 12 or 13 weeks and I love middle school and getting to know students. I am really excited to be here and seeing students I know from my elementary school from when I was their principal so that was awesome. Getting to know new students/teachers, getting to be part of volleyball, football, cheer games and all the other extra activities like band and orchestra has been really awesome. I really love it.
What is your job at Lively?
I’m the principal. As the principal you are pretty much in charge of the school but it can’t just be you. So you have a lot to do all the time but you have a team to help you so I rely on my team and the team includes: the teachers, the front office, the coaches, the counselors, my Administration team, etc. It’s just everybody we all work together and basically we each take like a little bit of what helps us run the campus and so a lot of what I do is I really monitor closely how everything is going. If there’s a problem I do a lot of problem solving so it’s the principal pretty much if there’s a problem at the school whether it’s with a student or a student outside community or anything I help do. That’s a big part of what I do and then I really watch everything very closely to make sure that we have what we need to be successful at the school. So do we have great teachers? How are teachers doing? How can we help them be the best they can be? If we have to hire any staff, I make sure we hire quality staff and signing off on teacher needs. Any money that comes or goes to the school, I have to approve of it.
What is the most interesting thing you have seen at Lively Middle School ?
The most interesting thing I’ve seen is from the time when we had a visit on the second or third week of school very early on. I was amazed by how our cheer team, orchestra, and band were ready to welcome congressman Lloyd Doggett onto campus. He was amazed at how much our school was prepared. Another thing that was really interesting to me was that he (Doggett) sent a picture he signed himself to my house.
How long do you plan on working at Lively Middle School ?
I plan on working at Lively as long as I can until I can’t work anymore and retire. I really love being a principle first and foremost and second of all I’ve been able to stay in this community so the elementary I was at I was there for five years as the principal and I got to stay in the same community as the students I served in elementary and that’s really cool to me. But I plan on staying here as long as possible.
What sports team at Lively stands out to you ?
First of all I love sports, all sports and I watch a lot of sports on TV. I go to sporting events and I have had a chance to attend Volleyball, Football and Cross Country so far. So I will say that all of the teams have stood out to me because of how hard you have to work to be an athlete. It takes a lot of dedication and determination and responsibility to go to practice, to keep up with your school work, to be a leader at the school, and then to compete. Even though you may not always win, you still learn a lot of really good life skills that you will take on so I will say that all of the athletes here at the campus have stood out to me because I know how hard they work. I have athletes who are my own children who are in school and I know how hard that is, so I’m really proud of them.
What is it like working at Lively?
It’s always busy. I mean every minute every second of every day we’re doing something. We’re either working with students or we’re working with teachers. We are creating plans of what we want to do next. We’re planning events and we’re also working with our families. We are sometimes in meetings. It just depends but pretty much all day, we are very busy and then every day is a new day. You know every day can be different especially when you work in a school and so that’s kind of what makes it exciting too like no day is the same and enjoy all the moments.
What are some things you do for free time out of school?
Really good question. So all of my close family, we all live here in Austin so I get to hang out with my family, including my mom, my dad, my sister, my nephews, etc. We do a lot of like barbecues together and watch a lot of sports. My children play baseball and softball. So I’m taking them to a practice or at a tournament for one of their games and so yeah I’m usually helping out my own children outside of school and then in between that if we have any time, we usually like going to the movies. I like to go take walks if I can and have a little dog so we take her for walks if we can.
