Sean C. Morgan
Josh Dargis takes over as principal at Oak Heights Elementary School this year with an appreciation for Sweet Home generated by years working in small towns and a long connection with east Linn County.
Dargis is moving from a four-year position as vice principal and athletic director at Sweet Home Junior High. He came to Sweet Home five years ago as a math teacher from Glide School District.
“I decided I wanted to be an educator when I was young,” he said. “I have 11 nephews and nieces. As early as when I was 11, I had a niece already.”
Being an uncle most of his life, he had younger children around him constantly, he said, and he knew what he wanted to do.
Dargis, 33, was born in Albany. He grew up in Coquille, and his grandfather lived in Sodaville.
He attended Western Oregon University right out of high school and studied to be a teacher. He went to work in Glide after graduation. He taught there for five years before coming to Sweet Home.
“I moved to Sweet Home for a couple of reasons,” Dargis said. “The biggest is this is where my family is.”
He was already familiar with east Linn County, and he has family in Scio, Salem and Portland.
Former Supt. Don Schrader recruited Dargis from Glide, where Schrader had been superintendent previously, to fill a math position at the junior high. He knew Dargis had wanted to move north.
“What attracted me to Sweet Home, I grew up in a little town called Coquille,” Dargis said. It had a population of 5,000 to 6,000. “That small community is something I’ve always been pulled to. The connections you can make, the kids you can reach, the sense of community is something important to me. As far as Sweet Home, I’ve been here for five years. I love it. I love the community, and the unity of it.”
Everyone tends to be involved and part of building up the community, he said. At the junior high, it was the sports that helped drive a strong sense of family.
“I loved it there,” Dargis said. “I love those kids.”
The hard part about moving is the relationships he has with the staff, coaches and students at the junior high, he said.
But the elementary level is where his heart was when he became interested in education.
“When I went into teaching, my endorsement was actually elementary,” Dargis said. He’s always wanted to work with younger children, to be around their smiling faces.
His challenge now is to build new relationships, to be involved in children’s learning, he said.
“Our scores weren’t great this last year,” but they weren’t great across the state either. Improving academic performance, especially among those who are behind, will be at the heart of the challenge.
To that end, he plans to work with staffers “on how best to prepare kids for that,” he said. “Setting them up for success is important,” Dargis said.
The elementary level is the place to get it done, he said. After seven years in the elementary schools and then moving on to junior high, it’s time for students to perform. And elementary educators can make the difference.
Things are going well across the board at Oak Heights now, he said. “The staff here cares deeply for students. They want to set that foundation to set up kids for success.”
Dargis is married to Katie, who taught in Roseburg before coming to the area.