The Sweet Home School District will see some familiar faces in new (and, in one instance, familiar) leadership roles in the upcoming 2023-24 academic year.
Current Sweet Home High School assistant principal Nate Tyler will lead Sweet Home Junior High this fall. He replaces Mark Looney, who’s taking the helm at Hawthorne Elementary School after Aaron Huff, who became the latter school’s principal after predecessor Debbie Phillips resigned in January, takes Tyler’s old office, which had formerly been his.
Tyler candidly admitted to a “little bit of fear” when he learned he’d been named to oversee the junior high.
“I’ve been a building leader before, but this will be a bigger building – more staff, more students,” he said. “But it’s a good fear. I want to be successful. I want the school to be successful. I want the students to perform well. So that’s where that kind of comes from.”
That initial trepidation, he added, has since been replaced by excitement.
“There’s a lot of good things going on up there,” he said, discussing built-in intervention time to support students, which he hadn’t seen implemented at any of his schools.
Tyler also described the student body as positive and the staff as a good balance of veteran and younger members.
“They’re [the students] funny and joke around with you, and are polite,” he said. “It’s a real positive environment from my experience. Really welcoming. It feels good to be up there. It seems like everyone [on staff] is there for the right reason, which is to support kids and get them ready for high school,” he said.
Despite that atmosphere, however, he hopes to address such problematic school issues as bullying and harassment.
“There’s no reason to go out of your way to be mean to somebody,” he said. “At that age level, education is going to be the first step. Saying this is how we handle a difficult situation, and these are strategies and techniques for how to get along with somebody that you may not really like. But at some point, we have to remove people in some capacity, whether that’s changing class schedules, lunch detentions or switching lunch periods or something to create space between kids who can’t get along.
Everyone has to feel safe and welcome; otherwise, they can’t get their education.”
Tyler himself is a veteran of the local school system, graduating from Sweet Home High School in 2000 after moving to the community around the third grade. He then attended Chemeketa Community College for two years before moving to George Fox University, then Western Oregon University after he finished playing college basketball. (During this period, 2003, he married his high school sweetheart, Amy Shank, whom he began dating their freshman year.)
He completed a bachelor’s degree in biology at WOU in 2005, then left the university with his master’s degree in education two years later. While earning the latter, he taught at Fairview Christian in Albany and finished his student teaching at McNary High School in Keizer.
He then taught science and at all levels at Madras High School from 2007 to 2012 before becoming the school’s assistant principal for almost six years. He followed with a year as building principal at Bridges High School, an alternative school in Madras.
He returned to Sweet Home in 2019, taking the assistant principal and athletic director positions at the high school, surrendering the latter to Dan Tow in 2021.
Superintendent Terry Martin said of Tyler “I think he’ll do a good job for us at the junior high. He’s got a lot of skills and abilities that I think he’s going to bring to the position. Some of the things that continue to be very important to us are building culture and improving achievement, and we’re confident that Nate will be able to do that for us.”
Like Tyler, Looney spoke of his upcoming new role at Hawthorne with excitement.
“It’s kind of a dream come true for me to get an opportunity to be in an elementary school,” he said. “I spent a lot of years in high school and then I moved to the junior high. Every time I would sub at the elementary school, I just loved being around the energy that the kids have.
“They are excited to be in school, and they’re happy. I think it’s the happiness – I just want to be a part of that.”
He described the school as “a good family,” adding, “I think I fit into family. I’ve tried hard to make the junior high a family, and I think I’ve succeeded.”
He hopes to make his mark by listening, continuing with professional learning communities (PLCs) and encouraging students to take school seriously.
Looney grew up in Scio and went on to Pacific University in Forest Grove but dropped out and came home to become a paramedic and firefighter, attending Linn-Benton and Chemeketa community colleges to earn his certification.
But after serving as a resident volunteer firefighter in Albany for a few years, he decided to return to school full-time, attending Western Baptist College in Salem, now Corban University, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in math.
He taught in Scio for two years before transitioning to the Salem-Keizer School District, where he spent 13 years at a succession of high schools, including South Salem, McKay and McNary, where he was a behavioral specialist for seven and a half years before moving to Sweet Home. There, he served as the high school’s vice principal for five years and the athletic director for one. He then moved to become Sweet Home Junior High’s principal in 2019 before landing in the open principal position at Hawthorne this fall.
Of Looney, Martin said “He’s a great presence on campus. He cares about students and the staff. We’re pretty fortunate to have such experienced people that are wanting to step up and step into those leadership positions.”
Huff grew up in Coos Bay and graduated from Marshfield High School in 2001. He received his associate’s degree from Southwestern Oregon Community College in 2005. He served a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Chile while pursuing that degree and taught high school Spanish following the experience.
Huff then attended Brigham Young University-Idaho, graduating in 2009 after majoring in Spanish education.
His teaching career began with a high school Spanish course in Prescott, Arizona’s Humboldt Unified School District. Four years later, he and his wife moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming, to follow better financial prospects.
There he taught high school Spanish for six years while earning a master’s degree in educational leadership at the University of Wyoming, completing his courses in 2018.
Looking to shift into administration, Huff became principal at Filer High School in Filer, Idaho, for one year before becoming the assistant principal at Sweet Home High School in 2021, the job to which he returns this fall following five months as Hawthorne’s head.