The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

After nearly three years abroad in Germany, Tim Roth and his family have returned to the Sisters School District with Roth stepping into a new role as an assistant principal for both Sisters Middle School and Sisters High School.

Roth’s official title is Assistant Principal of Student Success, which means he will play an integral role in helping students stay on track to finish their high school diploma with their cohort. This effort is part of a statewide initiative through the Oregon Department Education to enhance learning and improve graduation rates in the state.

For Sisters’ middle school and high school, Roth’s hire is a change from using a “dean of students” position part-time in each school.

Roth considers himself a Central Oregonian, having moved to Bend as a child and graduating from Bend High School. He attended Willamette University, where he also competed on the swim team, which is how he met his wife, Laura, also a competitive swimmer. After a stint of coaching swimming in the Portland area, Roth took the plunge to obtain his master’s degree in education at the University of Portland to become a certified teacher. Laura did the same.

“I was having so much fun coaching, I discovered that I wanted to work with kids,” he said.

He spent four years teaching science at Milwaukie High School outside of Portland before moving to Astoria, Oregon where he and Laura both taught at the high school there. In 2012 the family got to return to Central Oregon when Tim was hired to be the director of co-curricular activities at Sisters High School, where he stayed until January 2017.

“People knew me as the athletic director, but my job was in support of all co-curricular activities as well as assisting Joe Hosang, the principal, with some administrative duties,” he said.

The decision to work overseas developed in part from Laura’s experience of studying in London during college and the fact that the couple lived in Costa Rica for a short time as well.

“Travel is something we have always loved and we wanted to teach overseas while our kids were in middle school. So we filled out an application with the Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) and we started to get some calls from schools all over the world including, Turkey, Bahrain, Japan and then Germany,” he said.

The couple chose Germany, in part due to a fondness Laura developed for the country after visiting there in high school for a swim meet.

“I taught on a NATO training base in Bavaria called the Hohenfels Joint Multinational Training Base where I served as the math/science/PE department chair, AP chemistry instructor, middle school cross-country coach, and school chemical hygiene officer,” said Roth.

The stay in Europe provided the family with many new experiences, and Roth feels grateful to have had the experience with his family.

“We were able to visit about 15 countries in the 2.5 years we were abroad. We learned so much about European history, language, culture, and really, so much about our own country,” he said.

“We made wonderful friends from all over Europe and the United States and we learned so much about the military and military families,” he continued. “Most of all we learned that the world is really big with lots of different people, different ways of thinking, different cultures and backgrounds. We truly loved our experience and we definitely see the world through different eyes now. This experience also reinforced my view that Oregon is one of the most beautiful and special places in the world.”

The Roths knew their time overseas would be limited, so when considering the return to Oregon the couple focused their employment search on Central Oregon and Astoria.

Roth understands his new role is important to the Sisters School District, and he has three main areas of focus professionally, which include positive behavior interventions to help kids stay on track, reducing chronic absenteeism, and strengthening the transition for students from middle school to high school

Elaborating further he said, “My personal vision of the new job is building strong school culture and focusing on ways we can help our students achieve success. I believe successful schools build school culture focused on strong relationships with our kids, and so I will be working to find a place for every single one of our students to feel like they belong and that Sisters’ schools are their second home.

“In addition, I will be working to build a strong work ethic and character traits in all of our students and help ensure that rigorous instruction is available for all our kids.”

The Roths’ two children are Hayden, who will be a 9th-grader at Sisters High School and Mae, who is entering 7th grade at Sisters Middle School.

“I feel truly fortunate, lucky, blessed and happy that we could come back to Sisters,” he said. “I love the Sisters School District for all the good things that happen here and am proud to be a part of continual improvement.”