Going into a new school year after the past 14 months of quarantine and Zoom and lack of social contact is not an easy process. It requires readjustment and reinvention, thoughtfulness and patience. This is particularly true after the losses we experienced last year, some of which left a gaping void among the administration.
Without Jim Roome and Shane Snyder, the administration looks very different, now with the additions. Helm and Lloyd, stepped into the empty shoes left by Roome and Snyder.
"It was a great opportunity to work with Shane and Jim for a really long time. I don't think anyone can ever fill their shoes, but I think that I have different shoes and different things that I can bring to the table," Lloyd said. "And so I've learned a lot form both of their leadership and I'm grateful for all the time and skills that I got to learn from them."
Though Snyder and Roome undoubtedly left a legacy - and what many would consider very big shoes. Helm doesn't see her role as "filling shoes."
“It's not about filling shoes,” said Helm simply. “It's about being able to move forward and expand upon all the things that they left here.” Their legacy will always remain with the school and with Helm herself. Having known both Mr. Roome and Mr. Snyder for a long time, Helm says that they both greatly impacted her own leadership style. She communicates with Mr. Roome often, she says, noting that he is one of the people she admires most.
“I'm just really grateful that I got to work with both of them and that I know them both as people,” Helm added. In a sense, they will remain part of the A.P. position as part of Helm’s leadership. But in another sense, they have let go, leaving the school to find new direction under new leadership.
“We're not moving on from anything that they left here in all of their years as Raptors,” said Helm. “It's that, as a leadership team for the school or a staff or a building, we're going to take all of this...and we're going to move forward, because that's what they would want us to do.”
