URBANA — Jesse Guzman hasn’t put much thought into filling the bare walls and mostly empty desk at his new office at Urbana High School. After all, the school’s new principal doesn’t plan on spending much time in that space.
“I haven’t put a lot of care and attention in two weeks here, because I find myself out of the office as much as possible,” he said. “The office is for summer months and after school and early mornings, but other than that, I’m out with the students and staff, because it’s about growing and improving everything in the school — culture and climate; instruction and curriculum.”
Guzman makes a goal of remaining present and visible to his students and staff, but that doesn’t mean he’s a natural extrovert. The former principal of Jefferson Middle School in Champaign considers himself a homebody outside of school hours.
He’s not outspoken, according to assistant principals Melissa Kearns and Jessica Hines, both of whom worked under Guzman at Jefferson before making the move to Urbana with him this summer. Still, his presence is felt.
“Jesse is very stoic. He’s supportive. He’s reliable,” Kearns said. “He’s a calm, stable presence you can rely on, you can talk to. He’s got that kind of father-like leadership role where he’s someone that a lot of kids go to and talk to about things. He just has that very approachable personality that is really useful to have on an administrative team.
“And the biggest thing is that he doesn’t falter, doesn’t shake, doesn’t get nervous. He’s just very comfortably confident in his ability to empower people, whether that be 12-year-olds or 15-year-olds or adults.”
For a school and a district that has struggled with administrative turnover over the last several years, that stable presence is welcome.
Since Matt Stark finished his five-year tenure as principal in 2018, the district has hasn’t had the same principal for more than two school years.
- Deloris Brown’s time at the school ended after one year amid an overhaul to the school’s disciplinary procedures, a process whose implementation was criticized by the school board after a series of fights.
- Mitchell Berenson took over for one year, after which he elected to move back to his former home in the Chicago suburbs that summer.
- The school spent the 2020-21 school year without a principal after not finding a suitable candidate and relied on its four assistant principals to lead them through the year.
- Taren Nance was hired in 2021 after spending his entire career in and around his native Maryland, but the district ultimately decided to replace the first-time principal this spring after he spent two years on the job.
The school board also elected to replace Superintendent Don Owen in 2019.
The effects of the turnover have been felt.
“Every time there was an administrator change, the system falls through,” said Angi Franklin, Urbana’s Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources. “Every administrator has priorities, and if the systems aren’t followed with fidelity, they lose sight.”
The district interviewed the three candidates that fit its qualifications, and ultimately picked a leader who’s known to the community.
Franklin, who helped facilitate the hiring process but ultimately didn’t make the decision, worked with Guzman when she was principal at Jefferson.
“He’s a calm and thoughtful leader,” Franklin said, “and he’s also stable in the fact that he’s been in our community for years.”
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Growing up, hard work came naturally to Guzman, the son of a mother who was a third-generation Mexican-American and a father who immigrated to the United States. Guzman’s father worked at a factory in Galesburg, and he’d bring his son along when he worked odd jobs on off-days to make extra money.
Despite the fact that his father’s education stopped after the sixth grade and no one in his family had graduated from high school, going to college was always an expectation.
“They always had that expectation that I would do better than them,” he said. “They wanted me to go to college, they wanted me to do something more than them. They made it very clear that they wanted me to go beyond high school and advance up in society. So, that’s something that they pushed on us and wanted us to do, and it was an expectation that they set.”
While he always succeeded in school, Guzman said he wasn’t given the opportunity to enroll in honors classes until his freshman year of high school, when his Spanish teacher advocated for him. In his role as principal, Guzman tries to make sure students like him don’t slip through the cracks.
“I don’t want it to have to be a teacher who finds a student and personally advocates for them,” Guzman said. “I want it to be a culture and climate where everybody knows our students and pushes them and challenges them and holds high expectations.”
As he prepared to graduate from Saint Louis University in 2004, Guzman was looking for a job in a city that was a similar size to his hometown. He applied for a job at Champaign’s Edison Middle School at a job fair and was hired.
After working as a social-studies teacher at Edison for nine years, he moved into administration at the school before moving to Jefferson.
While he said he loved working at the middle school level, Guzman always envisioned becoming a high school principal. When Urbana’s position opened up, it was a natural fit with familiar faces, including Franklin and Superintendent Jennifer Ivory-Tatum, a former Champaign administrator.
After spending nine years in his previous position, Guzman said he sees himself spending at least that amount of time in his new role.
“It was a very tough decision for me to put my name in, because I loved Jefferson,” Guzman said. “Great school, great students, great staff. But for me personally, I was like, ‘OK, Jefferson has a lot of good systems in place with a very strong staff in place.’ The position opened up here and I was like, ‘This is a move I want to make … and help a school on its journey forward to make sure it’s the best school it can be.’”
In addition to Guzman’s calm, stable presence, Hines said he was able to consistently provide practical, usable feedback when she was a teacher at Jefferson. Instead of chastising teachers who made mistakes, he worked with them to find areas of improvement.
“It wasn’t theoretical” feedback, Hines said. “No, it was actual usable feedback that I really appreciated. I felt supported. ... He was like, ‘Let me help you work smarter, not harder.’”
Guzman also said he isn’t afraid of taking feedback. That’s one of the reasons he asked Hines and Kearns, the only two qualified applicants for Urbana’s open assistant-principal positions, to join him at his new school.
“We all have our different strengths, because everybody has different strengths and weaknesses,” Guzman said. “As a leader, I believe that it’s important that we have that diversity of opinion. I want people that have that diversity of opinion and are willing to share. I don’t want ‘Yes people.’
“We had very good debates, very good discussions. When I first approached them, I said, ‘There’s this opportunity I’m considering pursuing, and there is this opportunity.’”
For Hines and Kearns, the decision to move with Guzman was a natural one. After years of turnover, Urbana High may have finally found the stable presence it needs.
“I wanted to go to work,” Hines said of her time at Jefferson. “I wanted to be there. It changes their vibe about wanting to go to work. ... It’s just nice to know that I’m going into an environment where somebody has my back, even on the rough days when you have to make tough decisions.
“In nine years, I’ve seen that man visibly get angry not even a handful of times. He’s very much in control. Even when you screw up, he makes it very clear like, ‘Hey, we’re going to help you. You messed up. There are consequences for your actions, but that’s not the end of the conversation. How do I need to support you? What can we do?’ He really wraps around kids, around family, around staff. That’s a big reason why I’m here.”
Anthony Zilis