Principal and Chief Innovator of Milpitas High School and New Campus Programs Greg Wohlman’s first school year at MHS will come to an end soon. Wohlman sat down with The Union to reflect on and discuss his first year as principal.
Wohlman would describe his first year experience at MHS with the word “grateful,” Wohlman said. He is grateful to work with the students and staff in Milpitas, he added.
“To be active and present with the students and staff every day has been a huge highlight,” Wohlman said. “It’s just an amazing place to be.”
Wohlman believes that, over the past school year, he’s been able to change the role of the principal to be more involved, not only at the school level, but on the district level as well, Wohlman said.
“Being principal is about communicating with district leadership and community members and gauging what’s coming,” Wohlman said. “That’s just something I’m processing all the time. The decisions I make, or we make, and the conversations we have are going to have impacts throughout the district.”
Wohlman’s main goal for the year was to be as visible as possible to students and staff, he said. Seeing as MHS is like a constant moving entity, the more he is in motion, the more likely he is to see, feel, and respond to concerning events faster, he added.
“A goal for myself was to visit somewhere between five and 20 classrooms a day and I’ve done that every day that I was working on campus,” Wohlman said. “But is that enough? Was that a big enough goal? I’ll question that, I’m sure. But maybe the achievement is that I can walk through the campus and everybody knows who I am.”
After working at many small and large schools over the years as an administrator, Wohlman believes that MHS is one of the biggest schools he has worked at so far, he said. The school’s scale has proven to be challenging at times, he added.
“I think the challenge is making sure that 3,000 students know I’ll listen, that I care, and I want to protect them and give them the best opportunity to succeed,” Wohlman said. “It’s a challenge to reach all 3,000. I don’t pretend that I’ve had 3,000 separate conversations with all our students, but that’s definitely a goal. We also have over 200 staff members here and meeting them one-on-one, seeing them, hearing them, and learning how to manage a site this size is a challenge.”
For next year, Wohlman hopes to maintain his focus on connecting with students and remaining as visible as possible in order to strengthen his existing bonds and make new ones with as many students as possible, Wohlman said. He hopes to continue his efforts to establish connections past just the first year, he added.
“This is who I am,” Wohlman said. “So, next year is not going to change. The incoming ninth graders will know who I am, and the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders will still see me as much as they saw me last year.”
Wohlman’s biggest takeaway from his first school year at MHS has been that being the principal here is all about serving the people and the community as closely as possible, Wohlman said.
“If I just stay in my office every day and do the paperwork, it changes the position from a people job to a paper job,” Wohlman said. “The position is about people, which means you need to connect with people. When you don’t do that, you run the risk of making decisions on paper that aren’t about your people.”