Ahuva Lasdun, Homewood SGA President took a moment out of her day to interview Mr. Williams, our new principal here at Homewood.  Here is what she asked him and what he had to say: 

Ahuva:  How does it feel to be our new principal? 

Mr. Williams:   I feel ecstatic. I am excited to be here.  Every day brings the unknown and every day brings me something different to do. I love educating students and working with the staff and hopefully helping people to work through their issues. 

Ahuva: What was you reaction when you were offered the job and what was your reaction when you got the job? 

Mr. Williams: It was a relief, believe it or not. I felt relieved because it was something that I honestly pursued earlier in my career. When it didn’t happen then I put it on the back burner. I said maybe it’s not for me, maybe its not going to happen.  Then after support from several mentors who were principals telling me ‘No, you should give it a go you should be principal’ I put my paper work back in and I ended up being successful.  

Ahuva: What do you like most about being principal?  

Mr. Williams: You know, I have to  go back to being able to service the students, the families, and the staff.  You know I feel like I’ve always done that but it’s different now because I’m the ultimate decision maker for the school, but I can’t take that lightly.  The decisions I make will have an impact on everyone.  You know, I can’t be selfish and look at what would be good for me. First and foremost I have to think of what’s best for  the students and the impact on the staff when I make  decisions. 

Ahuva: How do you feel you can help the school? 

Mr. Williams: You know I’m full of ideas!   I have lots of ideas.  As you know we did the first quarter honor role for attendance.  This is my 4th year here, 3 years as assistant principal and 1 year as principal and I just felt like that was something that needed to be done for the students so that their accomplishments are honored.  I also brought in the student leader of the month who does phenomenal work.  You know I don’t pick that person, the staff nominates him, her or they. We are working on a photo project so students will see lots of photos of hard work in action.  We are bringing back the game room.  I just feel like I have a ton of ideas to encourage students to want to be here. 

Ahuva: Why did you join the education system in the first place? 

Mr. Williams: All right, lets take it all the way back. Senior year in high school actually I have to go all the way back to 8th grade middle school.  I played basketball and I had a role model who I still consider to be one to this day who was my basketball coach. He wore a coat and tie almost every day and I just saw myself as him. I enjoyed seeing him.  He was a good basketball coach and I could see education as something that I could do. And then fast forward to my first year of high school and one of the first things we did was go back to the community elementary school and tutor kids, and I loved it.  When I realized that they were getting it and it was because of me, that was the biggest reward ever. I was the one who made their “light bulb” go on and once I saw that it was something I was good at,  I just became addicted to it.   I feel I can help people and help others. 

Ahuva:  What has been your favorite thing about the school so far? 

Mr. Williams: Honestly, my favorite thing is that I feel like we are going in the right direction. I feel like people thought “quote un-quote what Homewood is, is so much different from where we are headed. And little by little I feel like people are recognizing that and we are heading in the right direction.”

Ahuva: Cool. What was your very first job? 

Mr. Williams: My very first job was a place called Dolly’s mini mart.  It was like a High’s/7-11 and my primary jobs were cashier, ice cream scooper and to stock the shelves.  So I would stock the shelves. They had hand dip ice cream.  I can remember my first check was for $15 and I was making $5 an hour and I had worked for three hours.  

Ahuva:  How old were you then? 

Mr. Williams:   Fifteen  

Ahuva: Did you like it? 

Mr. Williams: I loved it. I loved it. I truly followed the cashier line of business all the way through college. Almost every job after that had to do with being a cashier or customer service work.  

Ahuva:  What was the biggest surprise when you started here? 

Mr. Williams: I guess I have to go back to when I first arrived. The biggest surprise was all of the stories I heard prior to being in the building. When people found out I got transferred to Homewood it was almost like ‘Oh my god you got to go there?  Good luck. No telling what’s going to happen.’ And getting put in here my first year I realized, you know, they are students just like anywhere else. Their needs might be different and how you address them might be different, but they are just like any other students in any other county. 

Ahuva:  My last question is, what are you looking forward to for this school year? 

Mr. Williams: Honestly, we get to the end of the school year and day one of summer I’m able to reflect back on the whole school year and see how much success we have had. And also what are the things we need to do to get better.  I can’t wait for the school year to be over so I can just reflect, you know, how I can score myself honestly and see how I can improve so I can help improve Homewood.  

Ahuva:  Well, that was the end of my questions. 

Mr. Williams: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.