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Swain County Middle School has new leadership in Principal Ryan McMahan (right) and Assistant Principal Eric Stephenson.
Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
Ryan McMahan has stepped up to the job of principal for Swain County Middle School, with the goal of getting all his students to feel like leaders and move forward in life.
“Middle school is a challenging time for students. It’s a transition period for students. They are finding out who they are and who they want to be. We can see that transition, going from a sixth grader to an eighth grader, seeing what kind of role they want to play in the world,” he said.
McMahan said his goal as principal is to keep on with the quality schooling already offered at the middle school.
“We definitely always want to make continuous academic growth,” he said. “But the world we live in now, there’s focus on social and emotional, developing a whole student, not just in academics. Being successful doesn’t look the same for everybody. It doesn’t matter what it looks like – we want to make sure students feel successful when they leave every day.”
McMahan has a long history of work with the school system – he was a teacher for 4th Grade at West Elementary, then he taught sixth grade math, then he was assistant principal for three years.
Taking his old assistant principal job is Eric Stephenson, who has taught for 12 years and worked with exceptional children. He’s taught math, English and history, among other things.
It comes as the previous principal Tim Kurr decided to move onto new things.
“He spent most of his career here. He was ready for a different challenge. He loved this school with all his heart. He was my social studies teacher when I was here. He dedicated a lot of time to this school, but he was ready for a different challenge, he wanted to broaden his horizon,” McMahan said.
Leadership goals
Stephenson said the Leader in Me program had been successful so far, and that one of his goals for the year was similar to McMahan’s – to “open the doors to the community” and let kids keep developing leadership skills.
McMahan and Stephenson said the school was one of nine in the state of North Carolina that had the designation of being a “Lighthouse School” under the Leader in Me program. That means a school that has displayed especially robust leadership qualities.
A lofty aspiration for them is to become the first “Legacy School,” which is the highest honor for a Leader in Me school.
“We want to be the only school in the nation to be a legacy school,” McMahan said, though he acknowledged it’s “going to take some time.”
Looking to the future
Going into the new principal job, McMahan wants to make sure the community is involved with the school.
“We want to have more community involvement and more parental involvement. We want to encourage parents and guardians to be in school. Communication is the thing – we want to show what we’re doing, and we want people to be involved in these things,” he said.
Ultimately, he said he’s ready for the new challenge – mainly because he has a good team of people behind him, he said.
“Being an assistant principal, you see a bigger picture of what running a school is about. As principal, that picture is widened for you. There are lots of new challenges presented. Over the summer, the biggest thing I’ve come back to is that I’m surrounded by people I trust and can count on. I have tremendous respect for those I work with. There are always great people to go to for guidance.”