Principals walk same halls they did as students

The sousaphone Martin Floe played years ago still sits in Ingraham High's band room, a one-minute walk from his office. It's the one with the short tuning pipe. Frustrated that it played flat, he ducked out of band class one day and took it to the metal shop, where he "fixed" it with a hacksaw.

He smiles at the memory. It's one of his many Ingraham memories.

Floe's one of four principals in Seattle's 10 large high schools who walks the very same halls he wandered as a student.

Along with Floe, there's Ted Howard II at Garfield, who was quick to debate teachers when he was a teenager. John Boyd at Chief Sealth, a basketball star who called himself "Vanilla Thunder." And Ballard's Phil Brockman, a quiet, slight guy in high school — just 122 pounds when he graduated.

Except for Floe, none of the principals dreamed they'd pursue careers in education, much less lead their alma maters.

The schools didn't plan it that way — it just happened. But the principals see a lot of advantages to returning to their old schools. They know the history, culture, traditions — and many people. It is, Brockman says, "more personal."

The danger is that they might not bring new perspectives to a place that's so familiar.

The principals say they're not worried about that.

Boyd, for example, had been gone from Sealth for 20 years before he returned in 2004. After that much time, he says, "I think your eyes are pretty fresh."

MARTIN FLOE, INGRAHAM CLASS OF 1984

Ingraham today looks the same as when Floe attended. Room 100 brings back memories of composition class. Room 115 was debate. He even knows that each classroom ceiling tile has 318 holes because he counted them so often when his mind wandered.

As a student, Floe played tuba as well as the "improved" sousaphone. He liked Ingraham's sense of community and works to maintain that atmosphere today. Ingraham is better than it was when he was there, he says, in part because schools work harder to prevent bullying and make sure students have a good social as well as academic experience.

Floe loved school, and he intentionally treated all this teachers with respect because he planned to go into politics, law or education.

That paid off quickly. When his band director retired, Floe applied for the job and two former teachers were on his interview committee.

When a vice principal left, Floe moved into that job. A few years after that, he succeeded Principal Steve Wilson — who had been principal when Floe graduated.

More than one person, Floe says, has commented on his good sense of timing.

"Everything seemed to fit together," he says. "I think it's been a good fit."

One downside to working at your alma mater: Former classmates sometimes tell stories on you. A few years ago, one of Floe's let slip that Floe's high-school nickname was "Party Marty." (Mainly a reference to his fun-loving personality, he says.)

He arrived at school one morning to find the school filled with posters with his senior picture and "Party Marty Reigns Again."

He laughed, he says, then took them down.

PHIL BROCKMAN, BALLARD CLASS OF 1976

Brockman arrived as Ballard High's principal in April 2004. He was reluctant to leave West Seattle High but flattered to be asked.

He was the fourth of five Brockman brothers to attend Ballard, and now two nephews are among his students. His parents still live down the street and his mom knocks on the office's back door from time to time just to say hello.

Brockman was a quiet, redheaded kid in high school. He played trumpet, wrestled and ran cross country. The Ballard High he attended was torn down and rebuilt 10 years ago, so he doesn't experience moments of déjà vu in the halls. But Zesto's, a burger place, still is across the street, and he still knows many people.

Parents often come up and say, "Hi, Phil, remember me?"

"And even if they didn't know me, all of a sudden it's like we knew each other."

Ballard has improved over the years, he says, and staff continue to make it even better. He's glad, for example, that the way math is taught has changed.

That was a subject Brockman struggled with until college, so he sees the need to use different approaches with different students.

Every fall, he talks about his career to caution students about doing anything dumb in high school. Who knows where they'll be in 30 years? Like him, they could find themselves back at Ballard.

TED HOWARD II, GARFIELD HIGH CLASS OF 1985

Howard already had a job offer at an elementary school when then-Superintendent Raj Manhas asked him to apply at Garfield High. Howard had to think hard about accepting it because a high-school principal works nearly every night and Howard and his wife have young children.

But Garfield, he says, has always been a special place for him. Teachers cared enough to challenge him. Make him work. Make him think. Put up with him when he challenged them.

Like Mr. Creighton, a history teacher who wouldn't let Howard drag his gym bag into class. It was a small thing, Howard says, but an important one.

"When I was doing wrong, they (teachers) didn't mind telling me. They didn't allow you to slide."

These days, he says, he insists students pull up their pants, take off their hats inside the building. It's about respect.

As a student, Howard wasn't afraid to buck convention. Even though he was teased, he always wore dress shirts, nice slacks — or at least jeans with creases in them.

He wants Garfield to continue to be a place where students can figure out who they are in a safe way, and he wants to continue to strengthen its academics, which he says were inconsistent when he was there. The Garfield community expects a lot out of him as an alumnus, he said, especially African American families in the Garfield neighborhood where he grew up. He works to create opportunities for all Garfield's students, he says, but also expects students to work hard.

He's not worried that he'll get stuck in the status quo.

"Change is expected at Garfield," he says.

JOHN BOYD, CHIEF SEALTH CLASS OF 1982

When Boyd left high school, he hoped for a career in the NBA. In his senior year, Sealth's basketball team was ranked No. 1 in the state. But at the state tournament they lost their first game, a disappointment so sharp that Boyd still remembers the smells of that day, the taste in his mouth.

He went to the University of Montana on a basketball scholarship, then tried out for the Yakima Sun Kings but got cut.

He returned to Seattle, where he eventually started working as a teacher's aide and found he loved working in schools.

His first principal position was at a school that serves new immigrants to Seattle, the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center on Queen Anne Hill. That let him put his Spanish degree to good use — and he credits Sealth, which was ethnically diverse even when he attended, as one reason for his love of languages.

He wants to continue to strengthen academic rigor and rebuild Sealth's athletic program. Like Howard, Boyd said his own academic experience was inconsistent. He was the only one of his six siblings to go to college, although he says they all could have with enough encouragement.

"Students should be pushed and challenged at the appropriate level, but pushed always," he says.

When he visited Sealth as a candidate for the principal's job, the first class he observed had seven or eight students who were children of former classmates.

"That's when it sort of hit me," he said. "The sense of responsibility. These are the kids of the people I went to school with. They are my relatives, my own kids, kids I've coached. You have a deeper sense of responsibility for their welfare."

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359

or lshaw@seattletimes.com