Rodney White is the fourteenth Principal of Paschal High School. He also has the honor and possible burden of following a very popular Principal. And he has the distinction of being the first African American Principal of Paschal High School in its 140-year history. (Paschal began as Central High School in 1885) To state the obvious, he is a trailblazer.
Principal Rodney White is 49 years old and was brought up in Abilene, Texas. He attended elementary, middle, high school, and college in Abilene. He also did a bit of elementary school in Germany. His father was an airplane technician. He moved to Fort Worth in 2000. His first principal’s job was at Glencrest 6th-grade center. Glencrest was considered a turn-around school which meant that it was struggling to achieve state test result recommendations.
Then, with a turn around campus added to his resume, he was given the opportunity to open The Young Men’s Leadership Academy in 2012.
As Principal of Young Men’s Leadership Academy(YMLA), he was able to “create a campus that was innovative and different.” At YMLA, Mr White was accustomed to being in front of the students with a mic, which he doesn’t do as much at Paschal. He enjoyed developing the dress code at YMLA because he got to choose details like the tie the young men would wear. He loved that he got to choose every staff member who worked at YMLA and was also able to oversee the renovation of the repurposed Dunbar 6th grade center.
The community, in the beginning, wasn’t very happy about Dunbar 6th Grade Center being closed and turned into a boys only campus. Then the new school, under his leadership, achieved notable STAAR test scores. The school received a 27 million dollar bond that was used to redo the entire campus. “So it’s beautiful now,”said White. The school, which is considered a school of choice, had 100% college acceptance and graduation rate.
Paschal and Young Men’s Leadership Academy have some differences besides the apparent ones such as uniforms, and it being a single gender school. Mr White states that the first difference is “the enormous amount of students.” At YMLA there were about 420 students for the entire school and Paschal has close to 2100 students. “Seeing all of the students is wonderful and it’s nice to have a co-ed setting.” Mr. White believes another major difference at Paschal is all of the extracurricular events, clubs, and opportunities for extracurricular activities that students have.
The last difference is the culture. Paschal has a rich history because it has been open much longer than YMLA. Mr. White “loves the tradition and the respect we get from the community.”
Being in a new environment, Mr. White’s biggest challenge was not getting lost in the building. It helps when there are students there for him, leading him to classrooms and helping him become more familiar with the school. He was also surprised about the amount of students who weren’t taking advantage of the extracurricular opportunities. His goal is to “get everyone tied into something because High School goes by so fast.”
Paschal is currently a “B” rated school, according to TEA standings, which is still a worthy accomplishment. However, Mr. White’s vision for Paschal is to be an “A” campus.”Think about Elena Gil, she won state in the essay competition, so we have academic superstars already here. I need the Elena Gill aura to spread to the rest of the school,”said White. He believes it is very important to get students engaged who are not already engaged in order to help Paschal achieve an”A” rating.
Mr. White considers himself a trailblazer, for example YMLA didn’t exist at first, but he helped create it. He thinks it’s great that he’s the first African American Principal of Paschal High School and he thinks “it’s important to be a part of history.” “We need to be flexible and we want to make new history, “ said White.
He hopes he inspires kids to understand, “things don’t always have to be the way they were.” He didn’t come here to be comfortable, “I came to take a risk, make change, and get Paschal the “A”.” said White.*
*To find school ratings in Texas, visit TXschools.gov, the official Texas Education Agency (TEA) website, which assigns A-F letter grades to public school districts and campuses. The TEA ratings, released annually, assess student achievement on standardized tests, graduation rates, and college, career, and military readiness. For detailed performance data on specific schools and districts, including demographics and programs, you can also access Texas Academic Performance Reports (TAPR), formerly known as AEIS reports, on the TEA website
