News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Lora Nordquist is now the permanent principal at Sisters Middle School.
Lora Nordquist loves her job as Sisters Middle School principal. And her staff and the school board clearly like the way she does that job.
Nordquist, who has served as interim principal since the beginning of the school year, took the post permanently this month. The school board, citing her success as interim, elected to name her to the permanent position rather than seeking other candidates.
"It makes me feel I'm on the right track," Nordquist said.
The principal says she is "comfortable being in charge" and she tackled the job decisively from the beginning, not hesitating to make decisions because her status was temporary.
"I approached the job from the beginning as though I was the permanent principal," Nordquist said.
Actually taking the helm gives her some security to do long term planning and to set a course for developing the school.
The principal said she aims to continue the middle school's mission of being a place where students want to be, where they feel safe and excited about learning.
She also wants to work on curriculum development, creating more "coordination between teachers."
"I have a very strong teaching staff," Nordquist said. "And I say that as someone who has 20 years of teaching experience."
Discipline is always an issue in middle schools, but Nordquist says Sisters has very "low-level" problems. She said there have been no drug or alcohol related incidents this year and few serious fights.
She said that theft is the main problem students encounter, along with tensions and bad behavior brought on by crowding in the halls and cafeteria areas.
"There are a lot of issues with behavior because so many kids are crowded into such a small space," the principal said.
Nordquist is an advocate for the construction of a new high school that would allow conversion of the existing high school into a middle school.
The school board is likely to ask voters for a bond to cover that construction in May.
"That has to be my highest priority this spring," Nordquist said.
Work that includes everything from politics to discipline to curriculum development is part of the attraction of the job for Nordquist.
"I love the kind of unpredictability of this job," she said.
Nordquist has not nurtured an ambition to be a principal for long. She said that superintendent of schools Steve Swisher encouraged her to seek an administrative credential a couple of years ago. What started out as something of a ticket punching exercise quickly turned into a genuine interest in becoming what she calls "a building leader."
Now, Nordquist believes she has landed in the right place. She likes the intimate size of the school, where she has continuous contact with her staff and with the children.
"I know almost every kid in this school by name, and know them pretty well," she said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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