Kent Nightlinger, principal, having formerly been assistant principal, knew what to expect returning to LZHS as principal.
Nightlinger said he had no negative impressions of the school when he left and has not formed any since coming back.
Nightlinger has been involved in education for his whole adult life. Having worked at LZHS as assistant principal from 2001-2004 and in schools of various sizes and settings, Nightlinger also says he has not had any major surprises at LZHS so far.
“I didn’t come in here blind,” Nightlinger said. “I had no negative connotations whatsoever [associated with LZHS], and coming in I had nothing but positive impressions.”
Nightlinger says he did not have a list of radical changes to make. Instead, he had a general ideal to work towards: to maintain LZHS as a prestigious school.
“My number one goal is to come in, meet people, observe, take a look at is going on,” Nightlinger said. “We look at stuff, see what’s going on around us and see if there are some things we might want to institute or do differently.”
However, Nightlinger described his position as principal as primarily a desk job. Long hours of office work can get in the way of going around the school and talking to people.
Nightlinger says he values social interaction and observation of the school environment as tools to improve the school, he tried to free up times on Fridays to tour LZHS and talk to people. He has difficulties finding time more recently and says he wants to get back in the habit of doing so.
“As December and January and February come around, things get a little busy,” Nightlinger said. “I haven’t been in classrooms the last few months as much as I wanted to.”
Nightlinger is currently focused on having an open line of communication between students, teachers and administrators. This is done through two bodies: The Student Leadership Team for students, and The School Improvement Plan for teachers.
The student leadership team, which allows students into the domain of administration, was already in place before Nightlinger became principal. However, Nightlinger says he would like to rotate more students onto the group, more often. The goals of this is to get more people involved.
For teachers, there is a process called the School Improvement Plan, which is required by the State Board of Education, according to Nightlinger. Nightlinger says he intends to work with teachers to improve literacy and provide assistance from the literacy coach for students who are at risk to falling behind their classmates in terms of literacy. Nightlinger says he also generally just wants teachers to have more of a voice in administrative areas.
Nightlinger would also like to see more honors students trying out AP.
“I know we’ve got a pretty good AP program as far as offering students options,” Nightlinger said. “I’d like to see more students participate [in the AP program]. Not the ones who are [already] taking five or six, but I’d like to see that student who is in all honors level courses take an AP course.”
Nightlinger would like to promote the AP program through communication with parents during the registration programs.
“Our success rate on the tests is phenomenal and what that shows me [is] there [are] a lot more students out there who can give it a shot,” Nightlinger said.
Nightlinger has been involved in many different schools, ranging from a small high school of 350 people ten minutes outside of St. Louis, a medium sized school in Dixon, Illinois, (hometown of Ronald Reagan) the school containing about 1000 people, and has been involved with large suburban schools like LZHS.
Nightlinger says when he was offered the position of principal at LZHS, he was sure that the position was right for him.
“All of the [schools I’ve worked at] have been great, all of them have been very different,” Nightlinger said in regard to the socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds of students in the schools he worked at “but I’ve learned a great deal from [each community] and how to do things better each time.”