Photo Courtesy of reporter and senior Etienne Brennan.
At the end of the last school year, San Luis Obispo High School hired new principal Rollin Dickinson to replace former principal and new SLCUSD administrator Leslie O’Connor.
Many students are familiar with who Dickinson is and what he wants to do with this school. Luckily Expressions interviewed Dickinson to learn a bit more about him and how his year is going.
Expressions: Where are you from?
Principal Rollin Dickinson: I grew up in San Luis Obispo. I went to Bishop’s Peak Elementary, Laguna Middle School, and graduated from [SLOHS]. Then I taught in California, North Carolina, and Oregon.
Expressions: Where did you work prior to SLOHS?
Dickinson: When I was 21, I started teaching high school English in Patterson, California. It was the most amazing experience. I also worked as an assistant principal in Portland, Oregon and lived there for 24 years.
Expressions: What made you want to work in the education realm?
Dickinson: In my senior year in college I was all set to get my Phd in English and had filled out all the applications. Then I had this sort of crisis when I was thinking about, ‘Should I spend all my 20s in grad school doing work that is interesting, but maybe doesn’t make a difference? Or, should I join my love of literature with my passion for social justice and making a difference? So, I called around to school districts to see if they took someone without a credential. The first place I called said ya and I went down for an interview and ended up getting hired.
Expressions: What is your favorite part about SLOHS and working here?
Dickinson: The whole day experience. Being able to greet students in the morning and then saying good night, because we’re leaving at 9:30 p.m after games. I think this school is a really special spot in the universe. We have a lot of really great people here. And what we’re trying to do is learn how to grow with each other and learn how to do some pretty interesting things that a lot of other schools are unable to do.
Expressions: What is something you want to work toward implementing on campus?
Dickinson: A lot of students had pretty hard years because of online learning and COVID-19 and everything else. So we have a lot of students who had F’s. One of our goals was to really minimize the number of students that had D’s and F’s. Just to make sure that we’re providing a high quality educational experience for each and every student. We’ve already made a lot of progress on that. And there’s a lot of little things that we’ve done to make that happen. Like The Hub, a tutoring program, next year we’re going to put it in a period one day a week, which will be like a tutorial period. The way that would work is teachers would be able to sort of advertise what they have, what kind of support they’re going to provide, in a very short period of 40 minutes. And then they will be able to sign students up for their session, say, I know you need extra help, in an AP, or like you didn’t do all that algebra quiz, a teacher can bring you in. Then it goes to students next, then they can see all the options and they can sign up for things. We also have cool things like guest speakers and other things for people to sign up for. Basically implementing another way to help students who aren’t doing as well but also enrichment opportunities for students.
Overall, Dickinson is doing a great job at our high school this year and implementing programs that will be beneficial for students in the future. Dickinson loves SLOHS and what the students and staff are doing with it. Having a principal that cares about his school is crucial, and having Dickinson’s energy is refreshing.
After Expressions interviewed Dickinson about his thoughts on how his year is going, the staff at SLOHS was told to also give feedback. This feedback came back positive, supportive and helpful according to Dickinson.
“Our administrator is committed to teaching and learning as an instructional leader, establishes trust and builds relationships with staff, students, and parents, and lastly our administrator is approachable and receptive to feedback,” said the SLOHS staff’s collective feedback via Dickinson.
