Green named new principal for Clinton HS

A deep passion and dedication to improving the lives of young people are the philosophies that guide John Green, who has been given the honor of new principal for Clinton High School.

“I’m filled with just that wonderful nervous excitement, the excitement that comes with getting to know a new place,” Green said about being named to the position. “I’m looking forward to getting to know the people and I have done a little research about the area. I just feel really ready to jump in, work with the staff, to collaborate with them and just continue the good work they’re been doing.

“We’re still just getting the feeling down right now and my feet haven’t really quite touched the ground, but I’m so excited,” he continued. “It’s just a tremendous honor, and again, that nervous excitement to get our feet on the ground and get to work for the next school year.”

Green was hired on May 30 and comes to helm the Dark Horses following the retirement of recent CHS principal Susan Westerbeek. Green comes from Cumberland County, where he was assistant principal at John Griffin Middle School. His journey to Clinton City Schools was an unintentional one as he planned to stay in Cumberland County, the place he’s called home most his life.

“I was in a unique place, Cumberland County is my home so I really did have plans to stay here and initially wasn’t really looking outside,” Green said. “I was in the process of trying to become a principal in Cumberland County and even had a few interviews.”

That, however, changed following a random opportunity from a chance encounter with Sunset Avenue principal Nicole Carroll, who gave Green the nudge about the opening at CHS.

“I was part of a program called Early Career Principals Academy and another principal in your county, Mrs. Nicole Carroll, just one day came up to me and asked if my county had offered me a position,” he said. “Afterwards, she told me they had an opening and she wanted me to check it out.”

Green was hesitant at first and initially turned down the offer, but after looking into the area and getting to sit down with some of the CHS staff, his view began to change.

“At the time, I said ‘no’, of course there’s always a little trepidation when it’s a new place,” he said. “Plus there’s the gap of the staff wondering about me — I was the same way with them — and I was just unsure about the new start. Even so, I actually looked into it and I spoke with Dr. Johnson a little bit about the position and came to say, you know what, this feels good.

“So I went for the interviews and as the interviews progressed, I began to really start to see this as my home. It was so funny, but it really started off with me not even looking and then just getting the wonderful selling points from the principal that even led me to explore the possibility of coming.”

As new leadership steps in, all too common are the thoughts of how they’ll run operations or how they will make changes. That said, what are the views and values that Green is planning on bringing to the well-established culture that is Dark Horse Country?

According to him, right now, it’s all about keeping the spirit and vision of what has become CHS while bring in his continued passion for growing students.

“Right now, I would say my committed focus is working to exemplify the spirit of the vision and mission that not only the district has, but also the school,” he said. “I looked at the school improvement plan and what they’re going for, so right now, my whole thing is to meet the staff, get to know everybody, their positions and let them help me understand what are the initiative they have in place. Also to teach me what are the things that absolutely must stay, things that are so significant to the culture of the Dark Horses, that if I touch it, I’m done.”

That idea of being able to dive head-first into that learning process is something Green said is what has him the most excited to join CHS.

“I also want to get their perception on some initiatives they are working on about where they want to lead the school system,” he said. “My whole way of thinking is and where my success came from was understanding that, although I may have to lead a certain areas, my perspective needs to encompass the perspectives of other people so that we can all find a meaning within it.

“So right now my biggest excitement is coming in, ingratiating myself to the culture that’s established and working with what we have, our school improvement plan, school improvement goals, to just take it to the next level and continue the growth that has started the foundation.”

Green isn’t the only one who is excited about his arrival to the schools system either as CCS Superintendent Wesley Johnson was eager to speak on him.

“We are excited to welcome Principal Green to Dark Horse nation,” Johnson said. “His years of experience at all levels of secondary education and post-secondary education ultimately led to our decision to offer him the position. He has a great deal of content knowledge from being a former high school math teacher and also served as a high school athletic director in Cumberland County Schools. Principal Westerbeek was one of a kind and an exceptional leader of CHS, so I was looking for someone who could step in, keep the momentum moving forward and make an immediate impact, and I feel Principal Green is ready to fill that role. We look forward to his arrival in our district on July 1st, and he is excited to meet his new students and staff.”

Those thoughts are one’s that CCS Board of Education Chair Dr. Linda Brunson echoed, “We’re looking forward to supporting Mr. Green as the new CHS principal. His leadership experience in academics is impressive. We thank him for choosing the Dark Horses as his place to make a difference in the lives of young people.”

Before coming to Sampson County Green spent his life moving around while growing up as a military brat. After finally getting worn out with that life he said Fayetteville would become his home once his family settled there.

“I tell everybody I was a military brat growing up, so I was quite used to having to move and get use to different cultures and traditions,” he said. “Once I got to Fayetteville, North Carolina, it kind of it wears you out moving all the time so you want to be established. After my father started in Fayetteville, I have just made Fayetteville my home so when I tell everybody where I’m from, I say I’m from Fayetteville.”

Green remained in Fayetteville graduating from Westover High School and even went to college at Fayetteville State University.

His education career would start in 2007 after he got the opportunity to become a math teacher for Cumberland County Schools during a huge shortage. At that time he was still lacking a some of the pedagogy, methods and practices of teaching, and returned to school to learn the ends and outs of classroom management and the rigors of student learning.

Soon after, he’d land his first teaching job at Lewis Chapel and eventually went on to Westover Middle where he’d spend all his teaching career. Fast forward five years and the chance to move into his first administration job came forward.

“In 2012, I became the assistant principal at Westover High School so my first foray into administration was at the high school level,” he said. “In that position, I was athletic director and I also served as the Freshman Academy Administrator where I helped freshmen coming from middle school transition over and got them settled.”

During that time, Green said he reached a crossroads in his career where he was torn between becoming a principal and helping the ones that graduate high school.

“I went into a little bit of a crossroads in my career,” he said. “I was on the path to being a principal at that time but I always had this kind of unfulfilled need to know where kids go after high school. So I left Cumberland County, and I accepted some positions in the North Carolina Community College System and I did some work at Bladen Community College and FTCC.”

While in those positions, Green was part of a program called College Promise where helped students prep for the jump into four colleges and technical fields. That was a scene of fulfillment he said he enjoyed but he couldn’t shake the feeling of not being with students on a daily basis.

“I took a break and did that for awhile and that was a great and enriching time,” she said. “During the pandemic, however, I was not in the school system and I just started feeling bothered by the fact I wasn’t there with students when they really, really needed me and that feeling just didn’t go away. That’s what led me back into John Griffin Middle School because I just felt the need to come back in and work with students. They were the highlight of my life and what I do. That’s what brought me to there and now at this point I’m at Clinton High School.”

Now that Green is a part of CHS and the CCS family building upon their long touted legacy and helping grow the next generation of Sampson County youth is his new dream.

“I’d just like to let everybody know, one of my philosophies is that public education, to me, is one of the greatest honors and responsibilities,” he said, “because not only is it a job that gives purpose, we directly and indirectly get a chance to shape the lives of the future. So it’s really just that sense of responsibility and care that guides me, when days get rough.

“It is difficult working with students and times, you’ve got the good, the bad and the ugly with it, but ultimately, we actually help shape the next generation,” Green continued. “So again, I’d just like to let everybody know that because, as I just realized, there’s a trend and I don’t seem to leave public education. When I just reflect, that’s really what it’s all about. It is about doing my part and our part as educators — really everybody in the community — to shape the next generation and I take a lot of pride in that.”