Meet Principal Jeremiah Whalen

I'm Mr. Whalen. I'm the principal here at Sky Ranch Academy.

The way that Moral Focus works here at school is the kids get time every day, usually in the morning, and they're talking about our monthly Moral Focus virtue. We spend time each day and each week and each month helping kids grow. Parents see that we're making efforts to help raise good human beings.

The great thing that NHA does is the kindergarteners learn about it at a different level than the second graders, and that's different from the fifth and from middle. And so each year kids are learning new aspects of our Moral Focus virtues, and then we look for ways to highlight that through our reading, our science, our social studies.

We have two Moral Focus assemblies each month where families can come and celebrate the kids that exemplify our Moral Focus virtues. I think it's a great way for families to see, hey, not only do we talk about that as being important, but we're going to dedicate time and effort and energy into showing kids that it's important as well.

We're intentional about how we can help kids grow academically and then have fun and be seen and be joyful at school. We've got about 500 kids in the school. I know all of them. I know all of their challenges. And so you're not going to send a kid to school and have them just get lost. Not behaviorally. If your kid is having a hard time with their behavior, we're going to know about it and we're going to stay on top of it. And I think parents are appreciative of that.

We have a really positive and joyful culture in the school. And I would say that's true for kids and for our staff. My teachers choose to come here every day. They choose to come here because our school fills whatever teacher need that they have. And we're not perfect and we definitely have room to grow, but we have happy teachers. We have positive teachers, and that trickles down to kids. So I would say for both kids and staff, we have a joyful and a happy culture.

All parents, they want to talk about safety. And how do I know that each day I'm going to bring my kid to you and then I'm going to get him at the end of the day. All of our doors are locked all day long. There's several points of entry before anybody can ever get to a kid. Our exterior doors all have shatterproof film. No adults are allowed in the building unless they go through our system, which is running them through a database of who should be around kids and who should not. We do all we can to keep kids safe. Parents want that just as much as they want everything else.