New RUHS Principal Has Plenty To Share, Plenty To Learn

A New Hampshire educator who has worked for 27 years in one school district will bring his "student-oriented" administrative style to Randolph Union High School starting in July.

This week, John Holmes, 50, of Lancaster, N. H. signed a $70,000, one-year contract to serve as the next RUHS principal. Holmes, presently principal at White Mountains Regional High School, replaces outgoing Principal Duffy Miller, who is taking an early retirement option to pursue a career in educational consulting.

Holmes will bring some new perspectives and ideas, but during a telephone interview on Tuesday, he also noted that he will have plenty to learn about Vermont schools and RUHS initiatives.

New Hampshire, like Vermont, has adopted educational standards. But Vermont, Holmes added, "has stepped ahead and said that all students have to know the standards (to graduate) by 2005."

"So, at least Vermont teachers have a clear definition of where they have to go. Whether they get there easily or not—that will definitely be a challenge for me when I get there."

Act 60, Vermont’s school funding reform bill may seem complex and controversial to many, Holmes said, "but I think it’s a lot more refined and defined than what we have here."

The New Hampshire courts struck down important sections of a reform law passed several years ago, and the legislature has been trying since to agree on a solution.

New Hampshire schools—and the White Mountains district that Holmes has worked in since he started teaching—do have strengths to share, he noted.

White Mountains, like Randolph, has both a vocational center and high school sharing one big facility. Holmes has worked in both the vocational center as an instructor and director and at the high school as associate principal and principal. He noted that, at his school, the two systems are far more "integrated" than in Randolph.

The high school and vocational center are on the same block schedule, and some vocational programs are offered in block-long sessions. As a result, he said, students easily travel between both programs. High school students opt to incorporate vocational components into their academic programs, and vocational students elect academic courses.

Also, Holmes said, teachers in both schools share teaching strengths and equipment. Teachers even switch classes, for a few days, to give high schoolers a more "hands-on" approach, and vocational students a bigger dose of "book and blackboard" learning. Physics students might work on an engine, he said, or culinary students might learn about "the chemistry of baking."

It’s an approach that "honors both systems" and removes some of the traditional barriers between academic and vocational education, Holmes said.

More important, he added, it helps the school meet the various learning styles of students.

Holmes’ New Hampshire high school also has an "award-winning" student newspaper, and a variety of outdoor programs that take advantage the school’s 393-acre campus.

The student-produced newspaper, Holmes noted, "is mailed to every single taxpayer in the district. It’s a great method for telling everyone what’s going on in the high school. Everybody reads it."

Holmes is proud of some of these initiatives, but he stressed that he won’t press for quick changes at RUHS.

"I’m certainly not going to walk in and turn things upside down —that’s not my style," he said.

"Change will be slow, and certainly student-oriented," he predicted. "There will be a lot of input from faculty, community, and students before any major things happen."

RUHS board member Andy Becker was one of two search committee members who spent a day visiting Holmes’s district.

"We met with over 35 people in eight hours," Becker said. "We were told he had a wonderful relationship with students, and was very open to communication with staff and students."

The visitors, Becker said, were also told that Holmes was a slow and careful consensus builder, but also capable of making tough decisions in emergency situations.

Holmes said that his decision to leave the district stemmed from conflicts with a new superintendent.

"We have a different philosophy on how the building should be run," he said simply.

For his part, Holmes said he was impressed with the "comfortable, respectful" attitude he found at RUHS during his visit here.

He was also pleased, he said, to meet with students. "Getting to know kids, and watching them grow," Holmes indicated, is the part of the job he most values.

Holmes admitted that, at White Mountains, he spends a fair amount of out of his office: "Management by walking around," he calls it.

"I don’t like to sit at my desk," Holmes said.

Holmes and his wife Leslie, an elementary teacher, live on a farm in Lancaster that is populated with sheep, beef cattle, chickens, horses and llamas.

Tending the animals, Holmes said, "is what keeps me sane."

A daughter, Erin, is a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire in the equine studies program. Son Ben is finishing his master’s degree in British literature and film at the University of Newcastle in England.

Holmes, his wife and daughter will be in the area this weekend to begin a search for a home. They hope to find a place where they can continue to keep at least some of the animals they currently raise.

By Sandy Cooch