Our principal, Mrs. Machado, took time with me to talk about her job. She provided a lot of insight into what it means to be the principal of a large high school and the ups and downs of that very important job.
How did you become the principal here?
“I’ve been at Pasco High for the past twelve years. I actually started at the Pasco School District at Stevens Middle School. I was there for one year. I couldn’t do middle school very well. Middle school is a very challenging job. I felt that angels can teach in a middle school because kids go from point A to point B very quickly. I would have students that would be very happy one day, and then upset the next day, and I don’t know which emotion you are, are you happy, are you sad, are you upset? So I did that for a year and decided to come to Pasco High. I taught for five years as a math teacher, and then, from there, I loved math. I took a bilingual facilitator program here for another five years, which was super fun. I got to work with teachers and coach them up on how to provide services for kids who are learning English as a second language. From there, I decided to do an internship, which I did here at Pasco High, and I got a job as an assistant principal, which was great. My first year was the year of COVID, so I got to do a lot of learning. That ‘19 – ‘20 school year, we unfortunately had the COVID shutdown, where we didn’t have the kids on campus, so that was a rough year. Being on campus and trying to resolve ‘how are kids going to be taken care of?’ So, I got to do a lot of making sure that we had school lunches available for kids and families. From there, my boss, Mr. Stueckle (PHS principal at the time), had said that he was going to be moving to another position, and that he was ready to go to another position. Mr. Domingos and I put in for the principal position at Pasco High. We went through the interviews, and I was selected as the principal at Pasco High, so this is my second year in that position. My hope is to be here at least fifteen years. If I can make that happen, that would be great. Our previous principal that was her for thirteen years was Mr. Raúl Sital, previous to Mr. Stueckle, and I let him know that my job is to be here as long as I can be and my goal is to have the opportunity to build a new building for Pasco High, so I don’t know when that’s going to be, we’re working on that, but that’s my goal, and making sure that we continue to grow awesome Pasco High graduates that are just going to be in the community like we get to see them already.”
What does an average day in your job look like?
“An average day, if you see my calendar [on my door], I have it posted, so the green means the things I am going to. So,
there are periods of time that we have that are very busy, so every assistant principal and principal has to evaluate teachers, so we go through what we call a TPEP process, which keeps us busy at the beginning of the year and towards the end of the year. We also have other events that are happening today. For example, I probably won’t be done until 6:00. This week we will have a pretty heavy week because we will have the Mother’s Day celebration. We have other events that are happening, such as proms on Saturdays, so not every day is typical. My goal is to be out in the lunchroom, in the hallway, anytime that I can, in between meetings that I have. And then sometimes I do have to go to district meetings, so I have to go over to booth, I’ve had meetings at Chiawana as well, so not every day is typical, it’s almost like every day I have to look at my schedule and say ‘okay, where do I have to be today’ and make sure that I plan and make sure that I’m keeping myself in the time constraints.”
What is your favorite part of your job?
“My favorite part of my job is seeing the kids in the hallway and greeting them when they come into school. I don’t get to be out there daily, checking in. Anytime I meet with a student, be it for a good thing, or maybe there was a consequence, something that happened, I am always curious as to what they want to do after high school, and I haven’t done this very consistently. Still, also, I like to ask them ‘hey, who’s your favorite teacher and why?’ So just to kind of gathering data in terms of hearing who’s doing a great job because our prerogative here in education is to make sure that we are providing you with the best education and sometimes adults can think that they know what’s best, but we don’t always know best, so sometimes we need to gather that feedback from you, from students to make sure that we are doing the right things because I know that your generation is very intelligent, I know that your generation has so much, you guys are going to blow it out of the park when it comes to, when you grow up, running this city, running the country, your social emotional intelligence is high, you’ve been growing up in technology, you think in innovative ways, and you want to save time, whereas in my generation I value hard work, and sometimes hard work does not align with saving time or going and doing it the right way or doing it in an innovative way, so I’m very excited about that and I think it’s probably the best part of the job, is working with kids and staying attuned with all of the expressions that you have, I’m like ‘why? What does that mean? That sounds like something you would learn on TikTok.’ It’s pretty fun.”
What is the hardest part about your job?
“The hardest part of my job is not being in direct contact with kids as much as I wish I could be, so it’s a lot of meetings that we have, right now we’re working on making sure that we have our career pathways. I’ve been supporting on some of the pieces with Sageview High School, so anytime that questions are coming up about Sageview, myself and the principal of Chiawana have been there to make sure that we’re providing our input on the students that we represent that are going to be at Sageview that are coming from each of our schools. I have meetings when there are things that are happening that are not good, sometimes we have those meetings which are really rough, in my two years, we had unfortunately had a couple of deaths of our students as well, so I’ve had to navigate that and represent Pasco High as well, while grieving our students that we’ve lost.”
What is your favorite part about Pasco High?
“What I love most about Pasco High is our mission statement: All Belong, All Learn, All In. And I think that with our staff, our students, and even parents, I hear that all the time. Sometimes, if something isn’t done right, or maybe we missed a step, I’ve even had parents say, “Well you meant ‘All Belong’”, which really does, as a collective school, shows that we really do have the intention of making sure that all students feel that they belong, that all students are learning, and that all students participate in some way or another on our campus. I also love the traditions, so within the Tri-Cities, Pasco High School is the second oldest high school. The first high school was I believe, Kennewick, and then Pasco was the second, so as the principal I get to see, if I’m out in the community, and this is my second year being a principal, I meet people that were Pasco High graduates, and they could be seventy, they could be any age, so I have met people that have graduated many, many, years or parents that graduated. Now they have their students here at Pasco High, and so they get to share a lot of the history of Pasco High. I did a tour with one of the graduating classes, they had a reunion, and they were sharing stories of Rey Reynolds, who was one of our principals here many, many years ago, and during his football games, he would actually have a cannon going through Edgar Brown stadium. Can you imagine that you’re there for a football game, and they’re going to start the game, and then every time you score, a cannon goes off? That was more because he was in the military, and he had connections. Still, I get to hear stories like that every once in a while, so we have a lot of history, we have a lot of pride for Pasco High, and we have, more than anything, we’re an amazing organization that tries to make a positive impact for kids.”
What has changed at Pasco High since you’ve been here?
“Well, we built a new high school. When I started at Pasco High, they had just built Chiawana High School, so I came in a couple of years after that happened, and things had already settled, people were happy, and you couldn’t feel any of the shifting that had happened when Chiawana had shifted, so in that time, we built a new high school, right now we have a good idea of the teachers that are going to be going to Sageview, we have a couple that are maybe going to Chiawana, we’re going to have less students next year. Not very many less students. We’re going to have less staff members as well, and then right now we’re trying to make sure that we are supporting our seniors, making sure that we are getting ready for graduation, and finishing up [this school year].”
What is the biggest change you want to see at our school?
“My hope and dream is that every student at Pasco High School has a clear pathway after high school to truly be college and career-ready. Meaning that, although you might not want to go to college, that you have all of the skills and you have been prepared, and you have the decision on your side to make that you can go to college if you choose to. If you’re ready for a career, or if you want to go into a trade school, then fine, but the minimum that we have is that every single student is ready for college and career at Pasco High. Also, my other piece is that every student is able to feel that they have been learning in every single class, so because of our student demographic, sometimes we target a specific group that is struggling. I hope that we look at every single student, let’s say that you are already successful in the classroom, that we’re stretching you, so that you’re able to learn and continue to learn so that when you are in college or at an university, as a freshman, you don’t feel that we did you a disservice of getting you prepared for that next step. Although you might have met the assignment for that class, I want you to be more than just sitting there, not doing anything, but to have more to learn because that’s our job. Our job is to make sure that we’re stretching you so that you are capable and learning and growing all the time and just getting better and better and better.”
What is your favorite memory?
“I have a lot of favorite memories, anytime that I see a student who has gotten some acknowledgement or accolades, or anytime that our kids are able to be recognized, and we have so many things happening. For example, the dance team was able to win state championships, so I think I was looking at a social media thing that is still going viral of them competing, and people were just in awe of the work that they do. We just had HAAP scholarships, and we had some students being recognized. They received money for that, we have students competing, we had the robotics competition where kids went and won state competitions, anytime that our kids are able to go compete in other areas and receive recognition and accolades, it’s a humbling moment for me, it’s a humbling moment for all of the administrative team knowing that the work that we’re doing is very valuable and it has a very positive impact for you. We’re very, very proud, so that’s my biggest moment of happiness and positive memories is when you guys are showing up and just knocking it out of the part, competing and doing so wonderful and every single one of the programs that we have with VPA; band, orchestra, just all of the things that we have happening at Pasco High.”
Mrs. Machado always puts so much time and effort into all of our students and staff, so next time you see her in the hallway, thank her for everything she does!
