Teacher Profile Series: LRHS principal Kevin Terris

Kevin Terris has just started his second year as principal of Lind-Ritzville High School, but he has been in education for longer than that. Much longer.

"This is my 24th year in public education," Terris said.

Terris started his career as a social studies and language arts teacher at the high school level. After about a decade of that, he became an athletic director and assistant principal. Then, 14 years later, he was hired by LRHS to be its new principal.

A long career in education is not what Terris had planned in high school though.

"I wanted to be an accountant," Terris said. "I was good at numbers."

Terris was raised in Spokane Valley and graduated from University High School. With that desire to be an accountant, Terris went off to Spokane Falls Community College. It didn't take him long to realize that he had made a mistake.

"I took a couple of accounting classes and I realized, 'This is not interesting to me,'" Terris said.

Terris finished his associate degree while thinking about what he wanted to major in. By the time he graduated, he knew he wanted to be a teacher.

"I did some soul searching over the summer and as I was ending my A.A. degree," Terris said. "I talked to a number of people. I even reached out to a couple of teachers and they said it was a great profession and that I should go for it. I have a sister who is a teacher and she told me the same thing."

He transferred to Eastern Washington University. Terris says attending community college before a university was the right choice for him.

"It was a really good pathway for me," Terris said. "Academically in high school, I was above average, but I needed to find my footing in college. So it was a good transition for me to go to community college to get my feet on the ground and understand the amount of time and dedication it took. Once I got that down, I knew what I wanted to do in life."

When he decided to become a teacher, he needed to decide what he wanted to teach. Although he said he's good with numbers, his time in accounting classes taught him that he didn't want to deal with numbers for his career. So he looked for a subject outside math.

"I enjoyed reading," Terris said. "Some of my favorite teachers in school were my English teachers and my social studies teachers. When I decided I wanted to become a teacher and live out what a lot of my role models were doing and what I wanted to teach, [English and social studies] was kind of an easy choice."

While Terris was at EWU, he worked hard in-and out of-the classroom.

"I had a full time job with a freight company as a truck driver," Terris said.

Terris said this part of his life taught him a lot about hard work.

"I was working eight to nine hours a day after I finished school work," Terris said. "My dad was the operations manager ... It always made sense to me. If I have all this time after I finish classes, why not take advantage of it and make some money? It taught me how to manage my time."

Terris says it also helps him to relate to more people.

"It taught me how to work with people who I deal with all the time," Terris said. "It helps me understand where they are coming from when they work eight or nine or 10 hours a day in hard labor as they are raising their families. I think it's good that I went through a bit of that and understand how hard that can be."

Terris graduated EWU with a bachelor's degree in education with a major in English and a minor in social studies.

The father of one of his friends gave him advice to take a job away from home and the safety net of his family. So, he got his first teaching job at the Tonasket School District in north-central Washington, about three hours away from Spokane Valley.

After teaching a few years, he started working on his master's degree at Western Governors University.

A desire to make a bigger difference and impact more people led him to seek a higher position, so he became an assistant principal and athletic director-all while still teaching classes.

"As an assistant principal, I was dealing with all the school discipline and running a number of other programs," Terris said. "It was a small school."

Terris says his time as an athletic director helped him grow as a leader and prepared him to become a principal.

"As an athletic director, you have to maintain a sense of professionalism throughout a variety of conflicts that arise," Terris said. "You have to be the one who steers the ship without emotion. You have to make tough decisions that maybe the community isn't in favor of, but it's the right thing to do. When you're a principal, you have to make decisions like that everyday ... You have to have a backbone and make those decisions in a way that makes everyone feel like their interests are being served. If I hadn't been an athletic director for 14 years, I wouldn't be able to do the job the way I am doing it now."

After 14 years of being an assistant principal and athletic director, Terris again wanted more.

"I had some growing pains," Terris said. "I wasn't getting up in the morning excited about being an assistant principal and an athletic director anymore ... I was just ready to go somewhere new and get to know a new staff."

A promotion to principal wasn't going to happen in Tonasket, so after 22 years of working for the Tonasket School District, Terris moved to Ritzville.

Because Terris went to college right after high school, and started teaching right after college, he estimates that he has had a "first day of school" for about 43 years in a row.

"I've had a first day every year of my life since kindergarten," Terris said.

He admits that his first days have changed a bit throughout the years.

"There's still excitement, but a different kind of excitement," Terris said. "The biggest difference is when you're a student, even in college, you're responsible for yourself and your own learning. When you're an employee of the school, the responsibility is on you to perform. Kids are counting on you."

After 24 years in education, Terris knows he made the right career decision.

"All the little things add up," Terris said. "Wanting to have an impact on the kids in the community is what drives me and gets me up every morning."