In the fall, Mr. Dan Nicholas was announced as CG’s next principal, ready to take Mrs. Saffert’s place as she retires at the end of the year. This came as a shock to many, as the new head of the school is not a previous employee of the district.
Because Mr. Nicholas is not a current staff member, many students are concerned about how he will fit into the Cary-Grove picture. After all, he is an outsider, and the students as well as the staff know little about him.
However, Mr. Nicholas walked into a recent interview with The Trojan Times like anything but an outsider. He came into the conversation ready, decked out in head-to-toe Cary-Grove attire.
“I think Cary-Grove is an excellent school doing amazing things,” Mr. Nicholas began, already showing dedication to both the school’s culture and environment.
He was immediately reassuring in the sense that he did not want to change much.
“I’m not going to kick over the door and say ‘Here’s what we’re doing, it’s different, it’s going to be my way,’” he said. “I very much want to learn from the people who are already here, learn from the traditions, literally tradition and excellence on the wall, right?”
The reference to the famous Aristotle quote CG has painted on the front lobby wall indicates how much Mr. Nicholas is trying to absorb from his frequent visits to the school.
“I think to be a good principal, you really need to be able to listen,” Mr. Nicholas said. “There is no one perfect ‘normal life’ – responsibilities can look different. And you have a school full of people that all have their own lives going on outside of the school – have a lot of things going on that are not in this place – and those things affect us.
“If I’m a student in a geometry class and I’m taking a test, but I had a fight with my girlfriend last night, that’s going to actually impact that test score. Those things can affect school performance.”
While Mr. Nicholas is aware of the impact students’ personal lives have on their learning, he is also aware of how critical extracurricular activities are to success at CG.
“I got to see Fall Follies, actually,” he added, expressing his commendation of the show. “We got to see not only a high-level performance, but also the interconnectedness between how many people do both [sports and fine arts].”
He noted how other high schools don’t have that same overlap between student extracurriculars, and how it was something he admires and wants to continue.
“A lot of things that you actually learn within an academic environment, you are better at it, and you are learning also through your extracurricular activities,” he said. “It takes specific understanding and content knowledge to solve that math problem, but it also takes persistence [learned in extracurriculars] on some level to try and fail.”
Mr. Nicholas himself was involved in a lot of different activities back in his high school years, despite his high school lacking the otherwise interconnectedness between activities Cary-Grove has. He tried basketball, baseball, and found a love for tennis as well as golf, which he continued to play in college. He also found an artistic outlet later in life that would help him fit right in with CG’s well-rounded model for students.
“I wasn’t really involved in extracurricular activities that were non-athletic, but after college I became really involved in photography. I was actually a stringer for some newspapers for a while, did wedding photography, sports, all as like a side business.”
Mr. Nicholas is currently the principal of Wauconda, but he lives in Prairie Ridge boundaries with his family.
“I’m in the district as a parent, so in some ways I’ve already chosen D155.” As for his family: “Our oldest is in 7th grade, and then we have twins in 4th grade, as well as one younger. So there’s a lot of physical activity in my house. It’s pretty crazy.”
Seeing as Mr. Nicholas has experience wrangling four kids of his own, he will no doubt be suited to oversee the mild chaos that can be Cary-Grove High School. Surely we’ll find out more in the coming fall.