Pictured is Dana Williams, principal at Jamestown High School. Williams recently outlined the journey of his career and shared his passion for helping students succeed in the Jamestown community. P-J photo by Timothy Frudd

Dana Williams, principal of Jamestown High School, has a passion for helping students succeed and achieve their goals.

Williams took over as interim principal for JHS in December 2019. Prior to serving as the principal, Williams was the assistant principal at JHS.

“The superintendent at the time came to me and asked me if I’d be interested in assuming the position as an interim basis,” he said. “At that point, I said, ‘Sure, I’m absolutely willing to help out.’ That’s kind of when I took over and I’ve been in the position since.”

Williams said he entered the field of education “a little late,” as he originally worked at The Post-Journal after graduation from college. However, he decided to return to school for education; Williams said his goal was to be a school counselor. After finishing his education, Williams received a job at Randolph Academy and worked at the school for about 15 years.

While at Randolph Academy, Williams decided to pursue a building level administration degree from St. Bonaventure. Although he did not have a “burning desire” to be a school administrator, he decided the degree would be beneficial in case an on opportunity came up that he wanted to pursue. Ultimately, an opportunity did present itself to Williams when an assistant principal position opened at Jefferson Middle School in 2009. After receiving the job, Williams said he discovered that he enjoyed working as an administrator. Williams also enjoys working with students from all different grade levels.

“Since I’ve been in education, I’ve had the opportunity to work with all different grade levels, and I tend to like wherever I go,” he said. “I started with middle school kids, I really liked working with them. I had the opportunity during summer school to work with the elementary aged kids, I enjoyed that. Then after a couple of years at Jefferson, I had the opportunity to move up to the high school, so I came up to the high school as assistant principal, and I liked that. I guess that’s just the way I am, I just kind of end up settling where I’m at and enjoy those aspects.”

While Williams said many people have a “burning desire” to keep advancing higher in their career, he indicated that has never been his motivation. Working as an assistant principal with the school district, he said he was able to “really get to know kids” by spending time with them, working with them and helping them overcome a variety of issues. However, when the opportunity came for him to serve as principal of JHS, he said he was “glad” to serve in the capacity needed by the Jamestown Public Schools district.

Williams told The Post-Journal one of the most rewarding parts of his job is overcoming challenging times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I took over in December of 2019, and then within three months, here comes pandemic time,” he said. “We went right into that, not having ever gone through anything remotely like that. Especially when everyone went to remote learning, it created a need to really pull together and do things out of our comfort zone and adjust, and just seeing how everybody really rose to that challenge. Just getting through that to where we are now and how it’s really improved how we can teach and how we can help kids learn, I think that’s been the most rewarding thing.”

Williams said another rewarding aspect of his job is working with “really good people” at JHS. Although Williams acknowledged that JHS can be a “challenging” place to teach, as students come from a variety of “tough backgrounds” and “difficult situations,” he said the school has very good teachers that are always working hard to help students succeed.

“That’s probably the best thing is you take kids as freshmen and sometimes you’ll see they’re really struggling and really just fighting you every inch of the way and it’s not hard to think, ‘I don’t know if they’re going to make it,'” he said. “You have your doubts, but then you get to see them improve and their outlooks change, and they mature and, lo and behold, all of a sudden, we’re sitting in Chautauqua Institution, graduating and you get to see those kids and they remember what you’ve been through with them. That’s probably the absolute most rewarding thing and just seeing them come a long way and achieve that ultimate goal of getting their high school diploma.”

Asked about the most challenging aspect of the job, Williams said it has been difficult keeping students engaged in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. With families losing jobs, homes and apartments, Williams said many families were “scattered.” As a result, the school district lost touch with many students.

During the pandemic, Williams said the school had to make multiple adjustments to avoid compounding the problems of the pandemic with tons of students “failing and not moving on.” Now, after the pandemic, Williams said the school is trying to ramp up expectations to where they were prior to the pandemic.

However, while Williams indicated that there has been progress in the right direction, he explained that many of the students are still not working up to the school’s “desired workload.”

“Beyond that, we’ve just seen the huge increase in social and emotional needs of kids and how that really impacts school, so that continues to be a challenge,” he said. “A lot of people, I don’t think really understand the level of needs in this city. You know there’s a problem here or a problem there, but when you really are exposed to the depths of some of the challenges that families face, that kids face, it can be kind of staggering. We can’t solve everything that’s necessarily going on in their lives, but we want to give them that great opportunity to be successful as they do get older. That’s been a major tough spot.”

Williams shared that despite the challenges facing the school, what motivates him as a principal is his desire to see students succeed in Jamestown. As a Jamestown resident whose own children attended JHS, said he has developed a strong desire to show students that they can succeed. Regardless of the challenges facing the community, he wants students to be instilled with confidence that they can “do whatever it is they want to do” by working hard and achieving their goals.

“It’s just really having that kind of a sense of ownership,” he said. “It’s something I developed, and no matter what you do, you can’t get away from it. You want these kids to succeed. It’s almost like a challenge has been put in front of you.”