Green Sees Seamless Transition at PCHS

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ On Wednesday Pinckneyville Community High School Principal Jon Green becomes Superintendent.

"I had a five year contract as Principal," Green said. "I was content and didn't think I'd leave."

That changed when Superintendent Brent Kreid tendered his resignation. Green said he weighed the choices of either working with a new boss or becoming the boss and helping to select a new Principal. He threw his hat in the ring and got the job.

Keith Hagene, a PCHS graduate, is the new Principal. Hagene has taught Industrial Technology at Nashville High School. He was recently elected to the District 50 School Board.

"Superintendent is a slightly more political position," Green said. "Principal is political in a different way. I'll be focusing more on money and providing for the students than on student discipline."

Green grew up in the Lawrenceville Unit School District. His father served on the school board for 18 years, eight or 10 of them as School Board President. In contrast, Mr. Green has taught at three high-school only districts: Pinckneyville, Vienna and Fairfield.

Administrators in high school only districts such as PCHS are closer to their students, he said.

"In unit districts, administrators can loose touch with students," Green said. "especially if they're in a separate building."

Green will continue to serve as freshman football coach at PCHS. He said it will help him stay connected to students. "There's not any other area where you can have so much influence over students as with coaching," Green said. "Watching athletes grow, improve and succeed have been some of the best times of my career."

At Lawrenceville High School, he played football, golf, basketball and baseball. He went straight from Lawrenceville High to SIU-Carbondale, where he was lucky enough to meet Coach Rich Herrin and help out with sports camps there.

After five weeks as a Radio/TV major, he changed his major to education and never looked back. An outstanding U.S. History teacher at Lawrenceville inspired him to focus on Social Studies.

At SIU-C his student teaching application was misplaced, costing him an extra year of school. He got a minor in Psychology as a result.

"It ended up working for me," he said. "I actually taught Psychology." He also used the extra year to get in some coaching experience at Carterville.

Green continues to see the glass as half-full. He focuses on the positive and looks for better things on the horizon.

Following college, he taught at Fairfield High School for two years then moved to Vienna High School and stayed there for four years.

"I was happy there and didn't plan to leave," Green said. "Pinckneyville was one of the few places I knew I wanted to go."

Green and wife Jennifer, a Speech Pathologist in the New Athens School District, made the transition from Vienna to Pinckneyville and have not regretted the move. They have two sons, Tristan, 5, and Liam, 21 months.

Working closely with the four feeder schools is something Superintendent Brent Kreid began, Green said. He and Hagene plan to continue to work closely with District 50, CCSD 204, St. Bruno and Tamaroa Grade School to give future PCHS students the best chance of success they can.

"Out of 104 students in this year's graduating class, all but two of them planned to continue their education," Green said. He added that while test scores are important, preparing students to succeed in college is an even better measure of success, sometimes.

The government-mandated Response to Intervention program will begin at PCHS this year. RTI uses frequent testing and evaluation to immediately help students who fall behind.

PCHS Students will have a daily 25 minute RTI period. It will help break up the longer block periods each day. Green said the focus this first year is reading and literacy. Success in reading will allow students to do better in all subjects.

Green is optimistic about the future of PCHS.

"Mr. Hagene will have some ideas, the new teachers will have some ideas," Green said. "But, things are going well here and I plan to keep the ship pointed in the right direction."

That ship may be replaced or undergo extensive repairs in the near future, but that is largely up to the state. The PCHS Board of Education has selected a plan for a new building, but will not move forward until legislators decide whether or not to fund a capital improvement bill.