Walla Walla Union-Bulletin reporter Ben Wentz wrote this long feature about Jim Sporleder, former principal of Lincoln High School, and a member of ACEsConnection. It's well worth a read. Here's the beginning:
He gave too much.
Those were the words echoed by teachers and staff at Lincoln High School when describing Jim Sporleder’s reason for resigning as principal of the school earlier this year.
Sporleder, a 28-year veteran of the Walla Walla School District, was a transformative figure at Lincoln, literally and figuratively. He changed the name of the school, brought a traditional class schedule into the alternative education setting, took the bars off the school’s lower windows and dramatically changed the way the administration handled student discipline.
And in so doing, he helped change the culture of the school. Now Lincoln, formerly Paine Campus, has been held up as an example of alternative education done right. There have been video documentaries, and national and regional news outlets have picked up on the story.
But the compassion that led him to open his heart to some of his most vulnerable and troubled students, and the fervor to help spread a new way of thinking about alternative education — a “trauma-informed system” — combined with the stress of Lincoln being labeled a school of focus by the state, proved to be Sporleder’s downfall.
“I emptied my tank,” Sporleder said shortly after he announced his resignation. “It’s been empty for some time and I don’t know how to get it full.”
http://union-bulletin.com/news/2013/dec/28/sporleder-gave-until-it-hurt/
Here's the original story about how Sporleder and his staff integrated trauma-informed practices at Lincoln High School, with the help of Chris Blodgett and Natalie Turner from the Washington State University Area Health Education Center:
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