Schools

New Administrators Get Acclimated to Wootton

Assistant principals Mr. Jeff Brown and Ms. Dyan Gomez learn their new school together.

New assistant principals Jeff Brown and Dyan Gomez come from very different backgrounds in MCPS, but also come to at the very same time.

Gomez, an MCPS administrator since 2003, brings experience to her new school. Brown, who is entering his second year and is a "baby administrator" according to principal Dr. Michael Doran, brings an eagerness to learn the position. Both bring a passion for education and a strong desire to grow within the walls of the Rockville high school.

But before learning the school, the pair had to get to know each other.

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"You don't know coming into a situation what it's going to be like," Gomez, the 11th grade administrator said. "But it was very easy to get to know [Jeff]."

With their offices just a few feet apart in the main office, Brown and Gomez quickly grew comfortable with one another.

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"It's been really nice to not only have someone who's new to the building to work with, but also someone I can bounce ideas off of and feel safe doing it," Brown said.

The main issue, each said, is acclimating to their new community.

Gomez spent parts of the last nine years as an administrator at Richard Montgomery High School, Wood Middle School, and Rockville High School. Brown, the new ninth grade administrator, taught at Poolesville and Damascus High Schools before spending last year as an assistant school administrator at Richard Montgomery and Seneca Valley.

"One of the biggest things I've seen, based on other places I've been, is academics are important here," Brown said. "It's not because we're pressuring the teachers to pressure the kids or the community is pressuring us. All around, it's important to everybody here, and the kids are intrinsically motivated."

Each morning, about 70 students line up outside the library, Brown said, and they aren’t there to play computer games. These students fervently await the media center to open so they can study and finish homework.

Like Brown, his freshmen are also in the process of learning a new school, and the ninth grade principal credits Dr. Doran for placing him with the new students.

On the other hand, after overseeing her first crop of sixth graders at Wood continue with her and graduate from Rockville High School, Gomez was ready for a new challenge, she said.

“I was in that Rockville community for eight years,” she said. “I just knew I needed a different experience because I was so comfortable in that community.”

Surely, moving from one of the smallest high schools in the county to one of the largest was exactly what Gomez had in mind.

“I wanted to get into more classrooms, and I felt Wootton would give me more time to do that,” she said. “I wanted to see that dynamic, how they organize things, and how they run a bigger school.”

It wasn’t too long ago that Dr. Doran was learning the ins and outs of Wootton as it’s new principal in 2003. Both new administrators have recognized how helpful Doran has been as they go through a similar process, and Doran has been pleased with their progress.

“I think they’re both going to be here for a good stint and be real good resources to the kids,” Doran said. “That was important when I hired them and it was one of the things I was looking for. They haven’t let me down.”


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