Seva Hester
Editor-in-Chief
Starting January 21,Vice Principal Ryan Purtell will take on a new role, becoming principal at Stevens High School.
The announcement was made early December at an NISD board meeting. Purtell began his administrative career
as an assistant principal at Warren high school and quickly landed the vice principal position at our campus.
“Mrs. Horras as well as others around the district felt like I was the right guy for the job and that’s how I ended up here,” Purtell said.
Purtell shared the process of working with and training with Principal Horras prepared him to take on the leadership of his own campus, “(I) worked alongside her and with her and with the faculty and staff here. Built myself, I guess, to a point where I’m ready to be the Principal of a campus myself. And so that’s really, in a nutshell, it. I think that’s how anybody that gets a position of leadership.”
Purtell shared he is very excited to become a principal.
“I’m really excited. And that’s not to negate that I’m aware the job is a challenging job. I’ve watched campus principal, all the jobs here that administrators do are difficult but when you’re the last name at the end of the line, the buck stops with you,” Purtell said. “For everything that happens here, I’m aware that there is a big challenge but I’m super excited to go and dig into the work. It’s been my goal when I became an administrator and decided that my dream, my hope was that I one day would be a campus principal. I’m super excited about having that opportunity.”
This year is his seventh year being an administrator and 18 years in education. Purtell also shared some advice for the next vice principal.
“The advice I would give is that you’ve got an administrative team full of people that really know what they’re doing and you’ve got department coordinators and you’ve got lead teachers and you’ve got counselors,” Purtell said. “You’ve got people that really know what they’re doing and the best advice I could say is come
in, ask questions, look at what they do and why they do it ‘cause the overwhelming majority of what’s going on here at O’Connor is stuff being done the right way and not because of what I’ve done but because of what those people that will still be here when I’m gone will do. So that’s my biggest piece of advice.”
Even though he is excited about his new position, he expressed bittersweet sentiments.
“You always leave a part of your heart when you leave a campus. If you do the job right, and again, I’m not trying to brag on myself, but to do well you have to really commit to the people there,” Purtell said. “It’s not just a series of actions that you take, it’s literal, individual, human beings that you have to invest in. And so while I’m super excited about the opportunity I know that there are going to be people here that I’ve connected with; students and employees that I’m really gonna miss being around everyday.”