Deanna McCahan was a marketing and business major through most of her undergraduate years at the University of South Florida.
But a persistent thought of needing to go in another career direction would not fade.
“I spent a little bit of time in public relations and realized that it wasn’t fulfilling my desire to help people,” McCahan said. “So I reached out to my former marketing teacher from high school at East Bay, Janet Richards, and she suggested that maybe I should try teaching.”
What followed was a 24-year career in various administrative roles in the Hillsborough County school system that will continue this fall as the new principal at Freedom High.
Nineteen of those years have been at high schools, including her alma mater at East Bay, along with Spoto, Sumner and South County Career Acceleration Academy. The past five years were spent as principal at Shields Middle School in Ruskin.
Recognizing the differences in the two levels of schools has helped McCahan understand the needs of her students at each stop.
“Once kids get to high school, they have a great understanding of what’s expected of them, whether they are following those expectations every day or not,” said McCahan, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a masters in Educational Leadership. “Also, they can see that end, and they have an idea of their goals and what they may want to do after high school. You can talk to them about those action steps they need to accomplish that goal.
“Kids are feeling a lot of different emotions when they are transitioning to middle school. They are coming from very small neighborhood community schools.”
McCahan said at one point Shields had 2,000 students from five different elementary feeder schools.
“So you have these kids coming together from different neighborhoods and populations, and they have to learn how to work with other people who have different opinions,” she said. “We had to be very explicit in our expectations and procedures and communicating that regularly because the kids have a lot going on. So it’s very different from high school.
“Middle school teachers are very collaborative because the scheduling structure is based on teams. They really get to know the students. Where in high school, because of all of the intricacies in scheduling, you don’t necessarily get that. Teams within a high school tend to be content related versus grade level or based around a group of students.”
Connecting to students
What doesn’t change is helping students learn, grow and explore what they want to become as they navigate each grade.
“It’s inspiring the future,” McCahan said. “I was the first person in my family to graduate college. So I saw how education impacts the opportunities that we have.
“Most of my career I’ve worked at Title 1 schools (United States public schools that receive federal funding to support students from low-income families and help close educational achievement gaps.). So seeing how education opens up those doors of opportunities for students, but also helps to break that cycle of poverty, that’s part of my mission and is so critical to why I do what I do.”
McCahan, 47, said, it’s also important to make sure students feel connected to their school.
“Finding out what your students are interested in and passionate about and helping them get connected to those clubs and opportunities like extra-curricular things like a drama program or a sport or being part of a band,” she said.
Being a product of the Hillsborough County school system, McCahan said the county is always examining their processes and asking the community how to improve.
“As a school you have to know your student body and you have to ask yourself are we providing the classes that students are interested in taking,” she said. “As a school district we are doing that too.
“We did that six years ago when I opened up Sumner High School (in Riverview) with the addition of the Cambridge program. (The Cambridge program is similar to the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, where students have accelerated course work that leads to college credits. Differing from IB, Cambridge focuses on student interests and strengths.)
“They have to take certain courses, but within that category they have some options, like being able to take a different language.”
Focus on Freedom
An ongoing issue at Freedom has been a revolving door of coaches in its athletic program, particularly among football coaches. Chadd Wood will be the Patriots third football coach in eight months this fall.
While McCahan wasn’t a part of that, she is encouraged by Wood’s experience as a head coach at Chamberlain, and that he’ll be a physical education teacher at the school.
“I’ve had the opportunity to meet Coach Wood and I’m very excited about the passion that he is going to bring to our school and to our football program,” McCahan said. “For me, it was important that we hired a coach that has a presence on campus and teaching on campus.”
Her goals for her new school are building upon the things Freedom does well and understanding those areas that need to grow and develop.
“A goal of mine is connecting to the community, understanding what the community is looking for from their high school,” McCahan said. “Partnering with businesses; having people come in as mentors to our students and helping them accomplish their goals. But also building those partnerships with our feeder middle schools (Liberty and Buchanan) and really helping the students see what that natural progression is and see themselves eventually being a Freedom Patriot.”
As part of her fall preparations, McCahan is holding a community meet and greet on campus July 14 from 9:30-11:30 a.m.
“It’s important the community meet our entire leadership team and learn about us and our vision because four of our five administrators are going to be new,” she said.
There will also be information available about clubs and extra-curricular activities.
McCahan also wants her students to think about their future goals.
“Challenge yourself. Don’t give up,” she said. “Ask for help; know that there are people here to support you along the way. But once you get to high school, you have to start advocating for yourself. Start telling people what it is that you need.”