Shearer appointed as principal at Crestwood Elementary in Covington

Published 9:44 am Wednesday, June 6, 2012

While Tom Shearer may be new to the Kent School District he is not new to education.

Shearer, who was recently hired to take over as principal at Crestwood Elementary School in Covington, has among the experience he’s acquired in 32 years stints at junior highs and high schools as social studies teacher, principal and superintendent for a State Department-funded school in Nigeria. A graduate of Mt. Tahoma in Tacoma, he later returned to serve as the principal, which included working through construction of a new school building in 2004.

Having learned much since his first day in the classroom, Shearer said, he is ready to bring his experience to Crestwood.

“I believe you give what you get,” he said. “It’s not reverse. You have to give and expect what you put in is what you get out of it. That’s really what I’ve learned. People respect effort. If you give a high quality effort they respect your work. I don’t take anything for granted. I’m going to work to earn our community’s respect.”

His love for teaching and education first started when he was a student at a Catholic primary school in Tacoma and then a high school student at Mt. Tahoma.

“I had such a great experience in high school at Mt. Tahoma,” he said. “I had great role models in my formative teenage years. They were people of high integrity, people who pushed me academically, people I think about almost every day, all the time still.”

The high expectations those role model placed on Shearer, as well as on themselves, left an indelible impression on him about the positive influence a teacher can have on a student.

“They were smart people,” he said. “To know your business is one thing. To care about the people in front of you is another. They invested a lot of time and energy into me.”

When Shearer graduated, he attended Central Washington University, double majoring in political science and special education. He then went on to earn his master’s at the University of Washington.

Shearer stated that although he toyed with the idea of being a firefighter for a brief spell, he had his heart set on teaching.

“I wanted to be a teacher,” he said. “I wanted to have an impact on kids. I really admired what they (my teachers) did and how they went about it. I wanted to emulate them. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s true.”

By the time he graduated in the late 1970s, the unemployment rate in Washington state was roughly 6.6 percent.

“Back in those days it was tough to get a job,” he said.

He finally got his foot in the door in 1980 when he was hired as a social studies teacher at Stewart Junior High in Tacoma.

“I was very lucky to get the opportunity to get a job and try to start a life instead of being a poor college kid,” he said.

Although Shearer said it was relatively effortless for him to grasp the curriculum teaching methods, he wasn’t as prepared when it came to maintaining order and consistency in the classroom

“It wasn’t easy,” he said. “I had to work at it. I thought it would be a breeze, a piece of cake. But then I found out it was hard work. You have to plan for it. Not every class is the same. You may have a lecture plan, but it doesn’t always go the same for each class.”

He worked there for two years before transferring to Foss High School. Two years later, he was hired at Mt. Tahoma as an administrative assistant, and then was promoted to assistant principal in 1989. In the early 1990s he switched over to Lincoln High.

NIGERIA

Then around Christmas time in 1991, Shearer got a call from the Tacoma School District.

The school district had a partnership with American International School (AIS), which runs private schools funded by the State Department. As part of the partnership, the school district often sent teachers and administrators to the schools overseas on a leave of absence for several years.

One of the AIS schools in Lagos, Nigeria, had an opening for an assistant superintendent, and the school district was wondering if Shearer wanted to go.

Shearer said he had known of the program and had been given very positive feedback about it. But he didn’t know if the timing was right. He had just moved into to a brand new house he had built in Gig Harbor with his wife and two young sons.

“We were living the American Dream,” he said.

At the same time, however, Shearer felt it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

Finally, after thinking it over, Shearer decided to take the job.

It was a decision Shearer didn’t regret, as he called the AIS of Lagos one of the finest performing schools in the world. Run by a nine-member board, the school was originally built for American expatriates in 1964, but has an extremely diverse student population in kindergarten through 12th grade. As of the 2012-2013 school year, the student population is 37 percent American, 13 percent Nigerian, and 50 percent come from 53 other nationalities.

“You talk about diversity, it’s cool,” he said.

Working with such a wide range of students from different backgrounds, he said, helped make him a complete person and complete educator.

Shearer added that the formula for success at schools like Lagos is no secret.

“It’s a lot of hard work and a very high expectation,” he said. “It is going to take work, and parents are going to support us in the rigor. Language wasn’t an issue. We kept class sizes lower than what we do here in the States. But we expected a lot from the faculty, from the students.”

During the summers, Shearer and his family came back home to Gig Harbor, where his sons were able to play Little League.

BUILDING A NEW SCHOOL

Returning to the United States in 1996, Shearer continued working at the Tacoma School District for nine years. The first two were spent at Truman Middle School, before he once again returned to Mt. Tahoma as principal. It was during this time that the construction of a new school building was approved. While principal, Shearer said he also helped design the specs for the school, working with the architects and contractors for the five years it took to complete the project in September 2004.

“It was a labor of love,” he said. “It was so cool to have it done in Mt. Tahoma. The school itself is beautiful.”

Shearer then took a leave of absence to start an elementary charter school in Arizona. The school district was among the lowest performing in the state, and Shearer felt it was another opportunity to try something different.

“It took off,” he said. “It was almost too easy to be good.”

In 2006, he received another call from the AIS of Lagos, asking him to return. As before, he accepted the position and spent another five years in Nigeria before coming back in June 2011.

Unfortunately, he returned to find the Tacoma School District didn’t have any work for him at the time.

“I decided to take some time off,” he said.

He left the country again, this time working at the AIS of Cairo which was faced with a sudden evacuation in October. After the experience there, Shearer considered working for the State Department, but then was offered a substitute administrator position in the Seattle School District.

COMING TO CRESTWOOD

It was while working for the Seattle School District Shearer heard about the opening for a principal at Crestwood Elementary after Linda Butts resigned. As the school board struggled to find a replacement principal, the board finally appointed Leonora Noble in August, who was to serve for the remainder of the academic school year. In March, however, she stepped down and the school board started to search for a new replacement.

Shearer said he was familiar with the Kent School District, but knew next to nothing about Covington’s schools.

“I didn’t even know where Crestwood was,” Shearer said. “The last time I came to Covington there was a four way stop on Highway 18.”

After interviewing with the Kent Superintendent Edward Leee Vargas, Shearer was offered to serve until they could find a new principal.

What attracted him to the position, he said, was the strong reputation of the school district.

“Kent’s really on the ball,” he said. “There’s sharp people and they’re on the ball.”

Ironically, Shearer said he only intended to serve as the interim, and he didn’t apply for the permanent principal position until the last day available.

“I thought, ‘What a nice community, nice kids, great staff,’” he said. “This is a nice place to be. I said, ‘I think I want to stay.’ I didn’t know what to expect. I just put my name in the hat.”

After a series of interviews, Shearer received a call informing him that he had landed the job.

“There’s a lot of good things about this school that’s already in place,” he said. “I think we’re going to do a lot of great things here. I’m an eternal optimist.”