Administrative change has come to Morton West. Principal, Dr. Joshua McMahon, started working at Morton West as a dean in 2009 and became Principal in 2014. The 2019/2020 school year will be his last year as Principal because Dr. McMahon has been promoted to work alongside Superintendent Dr. Timothy Truesdale as Assistant Superintendent in charge of all the educational directors.
Dr. Joshua McMahon said “as Assistant Superintendent I will have a mixture of responsibilities and anything from what you are learning right now in English class. There’s a district director who is in charge of English and that person is responsible for the curriculum for what you guys talk about in class and I’m the boss of those directors”.
Usually, a person holds the position of a Principal around 7 years and Dr. McMahon held that position for six years. Dr. McMahon mentioned “I never really envisioned myself getting this position. Things just kind of happened and the timing worked out well as Principal. This is my sixth year as Principal. You know I did get my doctorate, at some point I did know I would move up a step of my career. Did it happen sooner than later, yeah, kind of, but as every student here will move on, you know, gain a professional career, you are always looking for advancement and at some point, you’ll be moving on”.
Being in this new position means Dr. McMahon will not get as much student contact which he will miss, “The positive where I’m really excited that I get to stay here within Morton and I still get to work with our teachers our staff. The negative is I don’t get as much student contact. I’m still going to try to do that but I don’t get as much as that” Dr. McMahon added. Although he will miss the opportunities to interact with students on a daily basis, Dr. McMahon believes being Principal has made a big impact on his life. Dr. McMahon says “being Principal is an unbelievable job, it is so awesome. And why do I say that? Because you get to see students like yourself grow. You get to see them as Freshman and you get to see them leave here as Seniors. Think of yourself as a Freshman, think of where you’re at right now. You know what I mean, to be able to see that it’s awesome. But it also comes with a price. Being Principal it’s hard, it’s stressful, there’s a lot of stress to the job, not because it’s a hard job, but it’s stress like you may not know this, and people may not know this, but every student here I feel like is one of my kids, you know I worry a lot even when you leave school like, do you guys get home safe? Being a school with 3500 kids there’s 3500 different things that can happen and that worries me. We have students who pass away, we have students that don’t get to live that full life whether that’s because of being sick or other things that’s difficult to see.”
This comes to show Dr. McMahon truly loves and cares about his students and his school and treats us like he does his own family. Dr. McMahon also mentions “the other thing is I have a family too and a lot of times this job takes me away from my family, not that I don’t bring my family, I bring my family to everything but sometimes I was missing things, and I was at my family event and I feel bad I’m missing a school event and vice versa and those are things that are tough and I’ve been doing this and I love it I enjoy it’s bittersweet”.
The rest of Morton West Administrative staff will also miss Dr. McMahon dearly. Mrs. Amanda Torres, Morton West Assistant Principal of Instruction, said, “Dr. McMahon will be missed, he’s a special guy and really loves Morton West and the students”. Because of the love, respect and trust the students and staff have for Dr. McMahon, Mrs. Torres says “I have faith in the people that are conducting the hiring process that they’re going to find somebody just as special and that really cares about Morton West as well. And I really feel confident for the rest of our administrative team to build upon what Dr. McMahon has started on already.” Although this will be a new change and a tough process for the school, Torres does believe it will have a positive outcome. “I think one of the plus sides of our building being so large when one piece of the puzzle is missing it kind of holds itself together. There’s a lot of people here that make this building work. But I think that he’s not going to totally be gone and I think that the students most enjoy about him is how much he supports them in events or games that he will still do all those things” Torres added. Now Dr. McMahon will go on to do bigger and better things, not just for the school, but for the district, for that we congratulate him.
