One of Mary Correa鈥檚 toughest assignments as a local school superintendent on the Big Island of Hawaii: finding a leader for Keaau High School just outside Hilo.
The principal鈥檚 job stayed vacant for three years鈥攏o one wanted to lead what was one of the poorest, lowest-performing, most dangerous schools in the state. (On one day in 2010, for example, more than a dozen students were arrested after a series of fights on campus.)
But Ms. Correa saw a spark in a middle school principal, Dean Cevallos, and persuaded him to take the job. On his first day鈥攁nd he still keeps the pictures on his digital camera to prove it鈥攙andals spray-painted 5,000 square feet of profane graffiti on nine of the 10 buildings on the 930-student campus.
The mess cost $40,000 to clean up. Because of federal Race to the Top money鈥攁nd because the Kau-Keaau-Pahoa complex area where the high school is located is a 鈥渮one school of innovation,鈥� a particular emphasis under that program鈥擬r. Cevallos got special access to state facilities funding. The walls were repainted within days.
But then the birds came. A structural flaw in the relatively new high school left an opening in one building鈥檚 roof, which provided an inviting home to 90-some birds and the biting mites that came with them. Faced with an epidemic of bird-mite bites among his students, Mr. Cevallos had to fix that quickly, too.
鈥淔ixing up the school was huge for us,鈥� said Mr. Cevallos, whose school has now been featured by U.S. News & World Report as . 鈥淚t shows you care. That kids are safe when they come to school. You have to start there before you can start teaching them.鈥�
Now, if only someone would come mow down the field of marijuana growing by the high school. (Marijuana is said to be one of the Big Island鈥檚 greatest cash crops, and drug use is one of the school鈥檚 bigger problems.)
