Dr. Hostetler is the principal at Farmington Senior High School. He is the type of principal that wants to shape the student body and make an impact on the students lives. He manages to stand outside when it feels below 5 degrees and greet us as we walk in. Dr. Hostetler is on the go constantly, in a meeting, going around the school to talk to students and as hard as it is, I was able to sit down with him and get a couple quotes from him.

First I asked him a very broad question, that was, “Is this year any different from any other year?” and when some schools can not answer that with a definite yes with confident details, he was able to do just that. Dr. H begins to say, “Every year is a little different, we push for new things. We have pushed in terms of building relationships with kids, and building teacher culture. Something that is different from last year is we’ve seen how kids treat each other and how often we see them here.”  Throughout the year I have noticed a lot more announcements about the attendance and Hostetler had stated that the high schools attendance rate is higher than it has ever been before. He even continues to say, “The general feel of the high school has become a more positive place throughout this year.”

Also something that has really helped out not only the students but the parents at FHS is how Dr. Hostetler has started to communicate more with everyone. He starts to say “I had began to send out emails every week to update the students and parents on what is happening through the week, but many students don’t want to read all of that so I started to play around with doing a video announcement and sending one to each class. Something short and simple so they know what is going on.” But not only has he used email or video he also sends out tweets for a friendly reminder that the students do connect with.

The last question I ended up asking was, “Why did you decide Farmington High School?” He follows by saying something kinda shocking to me, “I taught at South West, then Viburnum for 3 years, an assistant principal for 3 years then the head for 4 at Potosi. While I was taking over at Potosi there was a lot of room for growth so there it was easier there and at first I kinda had to be convinced to come to Farmington because I didn’t know if I wanted to do building level again. So when I got here I was having to take over a higher up school, it had it things that needed help but it was more of a challenge because Farmington has always been good at keeping up with its academics, takes good care of its student and so it was challenging job because we needed to find new ways to do some things. So that’s generally why I chose Farmington.”

As I was able to talk to Dr. Hostetler I learned that there is not a student at FHS that he doesn’t care about. At the end of every year he gets a mug with the entire graduating class on it, he has them spotlighted in his room because he is proud to be their principal and the students are proud to have him as a principal.