Retiring principal was on familiar turf at Vancouver School of Arts and Academics

Turns out he isn’t the only one with that experience. Local districts indicate that at least three other principals are leading schools they once attended:

• Matt Johnson, Mountain View High School in the Evergreen district.

• Todd Graves, South Ridge Elementary in the Ridgefield district.

• Kris Janati, at Felida Elementary in the Vancouver district.

“It’s kind of a homecoming for me,” Graves said.

Still, it’s not the sort of outcome anybody could ever plan for.

“Never in a million years,” said Johnson, a 1992 Mountain View grad. If you’d asked him in high school about coming back as the principal, Johnson said, “I’d have thought you were crazy.”

They can tell stories about walking around their buildings and running memories. For O’Banion, those educational echoes go back more than half a century.

“My first trumpet solo, in the seventh grade, was in the gymnasium. It’s now the dance studio,” O’Banion said.

As a young musician, he played “Trumpeter’s Lullaby.” His mother, Florence, accompanied him on the piano.

The interplay between past and present was illustrated when O’Banion dropped in on a class. It was his old band room; the place pulsed with fresh music.

“I don’t feel like it’s a 90-year building,” said O’Banion. “You hear the band rehearse, and there’s a lot of energy there.”

A school is more than brick and mortar, even one that was built — as Shumway was — with 300,000 bricks.

O’Banion said his formative years benefited from some great teachers who also became role models. Back then, the original Fort Vancouver High School was just down Main Street.

“Dale Beacock took me down to the high school to have me sit in with the high school band,” said O’Banion, who had been in charge of performing arts in the Evergreen district before moving to Vancouver’s combined middle school-high school arts magnet.

The running track next to his school used to be the Fort Vancouver track, O’Banion pointed out: “John Eagle taught perseverance and discipline.

“Those memories of being supported are so vivid.”

The principal’s name has quite a historic distinction, by the way: It bookends the school’s lifespan. When Shumway Junior High opened in 1929, one of the students was named Jim O’Banion.

“My dad was in the first class here,” the VSAA principal said.

Matt Johnson

Mountain View High

The school campus in Cascade Park isn’t the only familiar sight for Matt Johnson, a 1992 graduate.

“There is one last remaining faculty member, Bob Procive. He was my football coach,” the second-year Mountain View principal said. “It works out pretty well. He appreciates my connection to the history and tradition of the school.”

Johnson wasn’t planning on a career in education when he was in high school, he said.

“I thought I would be a doctor. It was a lot more challenging than I thought,” so Johnson changed his plan. Looking back at his years at Mountain View, “it was an impactful time in my life. I wanted to get back into that environment. Academics were important to me, and my mom was a teacher: It fit.”

A series of job openings brought Johnson back to the Evergreen district, and then to Mountain View, where he sees thing from a different perspective now.

“There used to be a little area on the west side where kids could smoke. Every time I walk by, I think about that,” Johnson said. “The weight room: I spent some time in there. When I go by where my lockers used to be, I will flash back.”

Kris Janati

Felida Elementary

Kris Janati attended Felida Elementary as a sixth-grader, during the 1979-80 school year. When she became principal in 2011, she wasn’t just returning to a school: She was returning to a community.

“My first year, I was wondering what was it going to be like, going back to my old stomping grounds,” Janati said. “But there are so many people who are still here, or who have come back.”

Teacher Cindy Patton, who is in her 38th year at Felida, also was there to welcome Janati back.

Janati’s own sixth-grade teacher, Ron Porterfield, wound up becoming a colleague down the road. “In my first year as a principal, at Sacajawea Elementary, Ron was the district administrator for elementary education.”

There are other links between past and present, represented by some Felida students, Janati said: “I baby-sat their parents.”

Todd Graves

South Ridge Elementary

At the beginning of the 2015-16 school year, Todd Graves returned to where his education began.

“I started here in 1981 in kindergarten,” the first-year South Ridge principal said. “I was here through the fourth grade.”

A longtime faculty member, Ken Bisbee, taught Graves when the principal was a grade-schooler.

One of Graves’ memorable campus locations has made its own transition, thanks to the need for classroom space.

“I go into the music room. It used to be a courtyard with a merry-go-round. I’d push myself around, and then drag my feet to slow down.”

His five years as a student does not begin to describe Graves’ links to the school.

“My mom, Mary Graves, taught in this building for 34 years,” he said. “Four teachers here remember me because they worked with my mom.”

His father, Tom Graves, was in education for more than 30 years — most at Battle Ground High School. And the family influences keep coming.

“My son, Hazen, is a fifth-grader here. He’ll be here one more year. I have three nieces and nephews. To see them all through school will be six more years.”