OHS Principal ‘Excited’ For New Year

Olney High School’s new principal, Haylee Haralson, said she is excited about her post and looks forward to learning and growing as she helps Olney’s students and teachers reach their potential.

Mrs. Haralson sat down with the Enterprise days after the Olney ISD Board of Trustees approved her contract as OHS principal. This transcript is edited for brevity and clarity.

Enterprise: What did you tell the school trustees and interviewers, including your predecessor Dr. Matt Caffey and a panel of teachers, that you bring to the role of OHS principal?

Mrs. Haralson: What’s really important for our school is the fact that I’ve been here. I don’t plan on going somewhere. This is not just a stepping stone to get to the next location. Anytime that you have a lot of turnover, it’s really hard for your campus. I’m not choosing this job because it is a pay raise. I’m choosing it because this is important to me.

My kids go to school here. My husband and I are not from here, but it quickly became home. I care about the kids. I care about the community, I care about the parents. I hope to be able to bring all that in. I think sometimes there’s a disconnect between school and community, and … I definitely hope that we can continue to bridge that gap.

Enterprise: You have a few transitions to navigate next year – you and Dr. Caffey are in new positions, and the campus is undergoing a major construction project. The Texas Legislature is considering revamping or eliminating the STAAR test. What are your thoughts about the coming year?

Mrs. Haralson: I have the best of both worlds because I’ve already been here, so I’m familiar with the kids and the parents for the most part, and how we’ve been doing things.

It’s not often that you step into a role as principal and you still have somebody here … who has been in that role and understands. He has done a wonderful job, so I have a great mentor.

The construction company, so far, has done a good job of explaining where kids can walk and where they can’t. As far as safety goes, I’m not too concerned about that because we do have walkways that kids can use and make sure that they’re not in the construction zone. At the end of the day, that shuffling around will [be beneficial] for the safety of our campus because we needed to make those changes.

Enterprise: Have you strategized with Dr. Caffey yet about the Texas Education Agency’s accountability rating for the high school campus?

Mrs. Haralson: When I was doing my principal certification … I got to work through that in the [OHS] office. I was able to see a lot of those things before I stepped into this role.

I did some adjustments within our CTE department to continue to improve those. We had a lot of kids get certifications, which was an area that we were low in on our accountability rating.

I also anticipate being in and out of classes a lot, so that I can help identify needs that we might have. I think that support is important to help our teachers to make sure that our kids are able to learn like they need to.

We’re not going to turn a blind eye to something if our numbers are not where they want them to be. We’re just going to figure out how to solve it and continue to improve and move on … but we’ll work on fixing whatever gaps we do find.

Enterprise: Lawmakers have not yet passed the public school funding bill despite promising to raise the per-student allotment and teacher salaries. How critical is it for Olney ISD to get better teacher pay and money for our kids?

Mrs. Haralson: Olney ISD has done a wonderful job of managing the money that we get for our kids. Putting our students first has been extremely important in all of the aspects that I’ve seen. We have phenomenal people, especially [Chief Operating Officer Tim] Orsak does a wonderful job, and [Superintendent Dr. Roach has done a great job, and I know Dr. Caffey will be creative in how we can stretch our dollars to be most beneficial anytime the state is not increasing funding or not giving our teachers or our students additional dollars. That’s hard, especially when we all know that things don’t cost the same as they did five years ago. I have no doubt we’ll make it work.

Enterprise: What’s in store for the dual credit and Advanced Placement programs?

Mrs. Haralson: We’re going to continue to push that for any students who want to take advantage of that. Obviously, we would never push somebody to do if they didn’t feel like that’s what they wanted to do, but we definitely want to continue to offer opportunities for students to gain college credit.

This is the best place to do that because you have … teachers here to help them. It is a great transition for our kids and very cost-effective compared to what they would find in college. So we definitely do not want to minimize that in any way. Anytime there’s room for growth, we’ll look at that.

Enterprise: What other plans do you have for next year?

Mrs. Haralson: I do appreciate that we had the Yonder pouches [for mobile phones]. I think that was really important for our teachers.

Our students might not love it so much, but I think their engagement in class is huge, and so we’re going to continue that. I also want to make sure that our kids have high expectations when you walk through the door. You’re going to be respectful, we’re going to work hard, and they usually do a wonderful job of that.

When they learn to work hard in the classroom, that transfers to … real-life careers someday.

I want to make sure that I listen to the things that our teachers say they need and work to get them what they need to be successful.