Topham opens Tooele Valley’s third high school

Nobody had waited for this day as long as Kendall Topham.

The principal of Stansbury High School took a hands-on approach to opening the first new high school built in the Tooele Valley in almost a century yesterday as he greeted students, checked in on teachers, and worked out kinks from equipment malfunctions to scheduling snafus. It was a day Topham had spent 14 months preparing for since he left his post as Tooele High School principal to take over SHS.

“We’ve waited a long time for this day,” said Topham. “Our greatest hope for today is to begin the process of pulling the students together to make one school out of students that have come from Grantsville High School, Tooele High School and Clarke Johnsen Junior High School.”

Topham’s day started at 6 a.m., posting signs at each entrance to the school so people could find student parking and drop-off areas, and staff parking.

“My biggest concern this morning was just making sure that we had the parking lots and roads marked so we got off to a good start with a smooth traffic flow,” Topham said.

After posting the signs, Topham walked the school grounds to make sure everything was ready. Carrying a handheld radio, he communicated with the office and his assistant principals on one channel and the building custodial staff on another channel.

“The morning went pretty well,” Topham said. “For the most part, people followed the signs and traffic flowed well.”

By 7 a.m., Topham was greeting arriving students. Most students took the opportunity when they registered at the school the week before to look around and find their classes and lockers. Renee Milne, assistant principal, wandered the halls with maps of the school for students that missed that opportunity or were still having trouble locating rooms in the 245,000-square-foot, two-storey building.

At 7:35 a.m., the first mechanical glitch was noticed when the first-period bell didn’t ring on time. For some reason the bell system was not working, although it had been programmed and tested earlier. Topham asked school secretary Colleen Carr to ring the bells manually. Then he waited for students to get settled and made a quick welcome to school announcement over the P.A. system.

Topham was then off for a quick walk through the building.

First he checked in with a substitute teacher covering a math class for a sick faculty member.

“It is hard enough to substitute, let alone on the first day of school,” Topham said.

As he moved through the school, Topham popped into most of the classrooms to check on teachers and stopped students in the hallway to see if they needed help finding classes. Without a map in hand, he was able to point students to the right rooms.

Topham stopped one girl with short shorts to remind her she was in violation of the school dress code.

“That’s the second one of those today. Which really isn’t too bad,” Topham said. “After we did away with tank tops for boys, we haven’t had too many problems with boys. They don’t wear short shorts.”

Walking the building during the first couple days of school helps make sure that everything is going well, Topham said. In a few weeks, when things settle down, he will use this time for formal and informal observation of teachers in the classroom.

Topham returned to the office where the office staff was dealing with typical first-day problems — some more comical than others.

One student had hopped on the bus in his neighborhood and ended up at Stansbury High School, only to find out his mother had registered him for Tooele High School.

Another girl had a class on her schedule dedicated to drill team. After checking the gym and finding out there was no drill team practice at that hour, however, she then realized she wasn’t even a member of the drill team.

Topham referred most scheduling changes to the counseling office.

Steve West, Tooele County School District construction coordinator, showed up to see how things were going and found some rooms to be over 78 degrees — when they should be between 71 and 74 degrees during the school day. The problem was quickly diagnosed using the building’s computerized controls and things started to cool down.

At 10:45 Topham went out to check on the lunchroom to see if all was ready for the first lunch at the new school. By the time he answered a few questions at the front desk and made his way down the hall, the bell had rung and students were pouring into the lunchroom.

Just outside the lunchroom, Topham checked on a pop machine that was delivering hot soda pop. Not only was it hot but the cans were damaged and exploding soon after coming out of the machine. Finding the pop machine repairman at work, he radioed for a custodian with a mop and bucket.

In the lunchroom the lines had started to move and Topham went into the kitchen to check on a water leak leading to one of the steam ovens. He stayed in the lunchroom for both lunches, helping to pick up garbage between.

“We have to get the students in the habit of cleaning up after themselves from the beginning and then things will go better all year long,” Topham said.

After the lunch room was empty, Topham sat down and enjoyed a quick bite to eat before he returned to the office. There he found 10 phone messages taped to his desk and a stack six inches high of free and reduced price lunch requests that needed his signature.

Topham settled in at his desk for the first time in the day, returning calls and signing forms.

Before long it was time for the end of the last period and Topham headed out to the back of the school for bus duty. After watching as students loaded on to buses and pulled away, Topham returned to his office.

It was now 3 p.m. and school had been out for 45 minutes. Time to return more phone calls and e-mails.

“I will average about 30 e-mails a day to read and respond to,” Topham said.

By the time his day ended around 5 p.m., he would have put in 11 hours at the school — a short day, he said.

Overall Topham’s assessment of the first day was positive.

“Yeah, we had a few glitches and things go wrong,” Topham said. “But they weren’t overwhelming.”

Topham said it was great to finally see the school filled with students.

“It was kind of fun to come down here earlier when there was nobody in the building and it was quiet,” Topham said. “But the place feels totally different with students and teachers in the classrooms. It is hard to describe but that’s what the building is all about, students learning.”

Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com