Seaman High School principal, Mike Monaghan, resigns
Seaman High School principal, Mike Monaghan, has announced that he will resign to take the position of principal at Lawrence Gardner High School.
Mr. Monaghan, who has worked at SHS for seven years, started out by helping in the driver’s education courses and later went on to work as principal. “This is the only school which I didn’t teach a class in, but I kind of had plans to, I just ran out of time.” Monaghan states.
The reasoning for changing schools was because of the amount of time being principal takes. He has been seen at almost every event the high school hosts, from the Battle of the Bands to basketball games, to forensics tournaments, he was there.
“I aged into this thing where I’m eligible to retire. It had been about a year since jobs presented themselves to me and I was thinking about it. The way I like to do this job is to put in a lot of hours, and I want to look for more balance.”
Monaghan just signed the contract with Lawrence Gardner High School and looks forward to meeting the students and staying there for another three to six years.
When recapping his history at SHS, Monaghan stated that his biggest challenge was the COVID-19 pandemic and how to keep students safe while also maintaining their education.
“When we were put on lockdown in March of last year, the school was shut down and I was the only one here trying to answer all the questions.”
Monaghan helped with the decision to go with the hybrid learning model, which included students going two days in F2F learning, two days remote, and having Wednesdays as a teacher check-in day, or a day to keep up with homework.”
“The idea of syncing in learning requires the students to still be a part of the learning community. This year, we’ve gotten to everything a little different, but as a district, we’ve done a nice job,” Monaghan states.
As for his biggest success at Seaman High School, blended learning, the eight-period block schedule, Norseman Bay, and the Career and Life Planning center were all mentioned.
“Blended learning started five years ago with the MacBook Air and schoology being the main learning system. We were told students need to be more engaged in their learning. This would help in the pandemic.”
Another success in Monaghan’s career that most students wouldn’t think of is random drug testing.
Monaghan stated, “The random drug testing is a helping policy and made a huge difference in the school climate. There were fewer disciplinary points and hearings, making the school more safe and welcoming.”
When asked about his favorite memory, Monaghan smiled and said, “Student and teacher success. A couple of examples, when we hosted the first 5A forensics tournament and qualified for nationals, the softball tournament for our first championship, a number of baseball and bowling championships, and our theatre department has expanded. To see them happy and achieving, makes me happy,”
This summer Monaghan will help train the incoming principal, Dr.Lyons, providing her with his insight.
“Dr. Lyons is coming into an amazing situation. We have amazing teachers in place who are trained up, smart and build relationships with students. It’s a great system with updated facilities and programming, which great kids who work hard and are focused,” Monaghan stated.
Monaghan’s last words to the SHS students were, “It’s always a great day to be a Viking!”