Principal Gary Morris at his desk at Mountain View High. Photo by Bonnie Hobbs.
Chantilly — Gary Morris is Mountain View High School’s new principal. But before he became an educator, he was a professional football player.
“I was a wide receiver, played football in college and, in 1992, got picked up by San Francisco as a free agent,” he said. Morris then played three years in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and loved it.
The league eventually disbanded, but Morris had already prepared himself for another career. He’d originally intended to be an electronics technician so, in 1991, he got a bachelor’s in electronics technology from Norfolk State University.
While playing football, he attended NSU in the spring and, in 1995, obtained his master’s in teaching technology education. So when the CFL dissolved that year, he became a technology-education teacher at South Lakes High.
“We were moving from shop to true, technology education — computers and technical engineering,” said Morris. “I built a computer lab there and got it up and running. It was an opportunity to do something I liked, and working with students was wonderful.”
“Teaching felt natural to me,” he said. But when South Lakes adopted an IB program, it cut some elective courses, including his. So he moved to Falls Church High from 1998-2004, in the same capacity. “While there, I earned my administration and supervision education-specialist degree from Virginia Tech,” said Morris. “As a teacher, you’re responsible for 150 kids, but I wanted to impact more.”
So in 2004, he applied for assistant principal at Mountain View. Instead, Principal Jim Oliver hired him as the school’s technology coordinator, working with teachers to infuse technology into the classrooms.
Morris later applied for assistant principal at South County High when it opened in 2006 and got it. “I loved it,” he said. “We had a great staff of veteran educators and were a close group by the time I left, four years later.”
“I knew I wouldn’t be leading the school all by myself because I have so much support.”
— Gary Morris, Principal, Mountain View High School
In 2010, he returned to Mountain View; Oliver was leaving and Morris hoped to replace him. Dave Jagels got the job, instead, and Morris became assistant principal. But when Jagels left in December 2014 to lead Centreville High, Morris became Mountain View’s acting principal.
He also threw his hat in the ring for principal. “When staff members here told me they wanted me to apply for it, it bred confidence in me,” he said. “I knew I wouldn’t be leading the school all by myself because I have so much support.”
When Morris learned in May that he had the job, he “felt relieved, because it’s such an intense process; it was a nationwide search. I was thrilled — not just about the job — but because people kept telling me, ‘I hope you get it.’ And that was just an awesome feeling.”
In June, he was named principal and officially took over the reins July 1. “I’m excited,” he said. “Alternate schools are a good fit for me because I figure most kids are genuinely good, and I haven’t had trouble relating to them and breaking down their barriers. I know it’s what they’ve had to do to survive in their social setting.”
Morris said Dale Rumberger — his former South County principal and a good friend — advised him to “just be myself and use relationship-building as the basis for what I did. My strengths are being a people person and developing relationships and community, and that’s what we’re doing here. I want to continue creating an environment where people feel comfortable working together, as well as being accountable for every student who walks through our doors.”
Morris is also a parent of teenagers, himself. He and wife Michelle have three children, sons Marcellus, 18, and Nicholas, 17, and daughter Camryn, 14.
While Mountain View’s assistant principal, he set up a forum for students called the Student Congress to get an idea of what’s going on in the school from the students’ perspective. “That way, we can find out what they need and how we can better serve them,” said Morris. “It also gives every student a voice — not just the best and the brightest — but one representative from every classroom. Whenever they feel like they’re being heard, they feel that much more invested in school.”
And now as principal, he said, there’s “so much support in the building” for his ideas and for how he works with students. “I’m happy we have the opportunity to grow as a staff, and I want to use the teacher creativity we have here and share it across the school,” said Morris. “I’d like to do more collaboration between departments and really start to bolster our foothold in Superintendent [Karen] Garza’s ‘Portrait of a Graduate’ model.”
He said people often look at Mountain View as taking students who weren’t successful elsewhere and “getting them through” to graduation. “But I don’t just want to get them through, anymore,” said Morris. “I want our kids to begin to be recognized for their strengths and find ways they can lead within the county.”
Therefore, he said, “My charge to the staff is to pull that from the students because they have that within them. For example, we already have a Reading Buddies program; our students read to students at Colin Powell Elementary. And we’d also like to do something for an elementary school with math. Mountain View is the teachers and the kids; my job is to stand by them, support them and fight for them.”
Toughest, said Morris, will be letting someone else do his former job of handling situations with the students. But, he said, “Those experiences — which shaped me — will shape the assistant principals, as well.”
He said his greatest satisfaction will be the next graduation — “seeing those graduation numbers go up and hearing the staff say, ‘You’ve done a good job.’ The goal is to become First Year Principal of the Year because, if I achieve it, it means the building is happy with what we’ve done as a group and the staff feels like I’ve supported them and given them what they’ve needed to be successful. That award would be a team effort recognizing all of us.”
Morris called Mountain View’s staff “absolutely awesome — one of the hardest-working, most caring and compassionate staffs in Fairfax County. They’re a special group of people I can trust and who’ll do everything to make sure the students succeed.”
“And the kids are the best part,” he continued. “We take students who’ve either had gaps in their education or who’ve been reluctant about it and help them realize their true potential. They come with all kinds of baggage and, in a matter of weeks or months, they trust us enough to share it. And that, in turn, allows them to become students.”
Typically, students aren’t there for four years; so, said Morris, “We really have to work that magic to help them achieve their goals and dreams. We make sure every student has a way to get to where they want to go and to see and almost touch their dreams and hopes.”