The past few years have been full of change, including the introduction of Meridian’s newest principal, Mr. Peter Laub. This is Mr. Laub’s 13th year at FCCPS and has worked as a Lang and Lit and Journalism teacher, as well as an assistant principal.
Mr. Laub loves working with students. In fact, the opportunity to interact with kids was one of the reasons he became a teacher. As principal, he hopes to spend time this year out in the halls connecting with Merdian’s students.
Mr. Laub has lots of aspirations and expectations, both for himself and for the student body. He is already on the course to achieve his first aspiration, which is strengthening school pride. Mr. Laub maintains that school pride is not only important for school spirit, but also necessary for a comfortable learning environment.
“My goal is for everyone to come to school and feel like they’re proud to be here, to be part of the student body, to be part of the club, part of the team,” he said.
Although the school year has just begun, Mr. Laub is already communicating his ideas of school pride to students, specifically when he highlighted this idea in class conversations.
“I think frankly, [school pride] hasn’t always been there. I think a combination of things for the last few years kind of repressed that feeling” he admitted.
But with these new efforts, he has already noted a change in environment, especially among the staff.
“We just had back to school night last week. And it felt great … because I think we’re working really hard,” he said. “Not just me, but the whole administrative team. We’re working really hard to have that feeling of pride and optimism in school.”
Aside from his efforts to strengthen school pride, Mr. Laub is also working to make simpler, more concrete changes, including adjustments to Mustang Block. Previously, students were allowed to go anywhere they wanted during Mustang Block, with little to no limits from teachers. However, with the introduction of e-Hallpass this year, teachers can request to meet with students during Mustang Block and help them complete missing assignments.
“That was a change we explicitly wanted, we felt like we needed to provide students with structure throughout their day,” Mr. Laub explained. “There are a lot of healthy benefits to structure, and we also wanted to ensure the safety and accountability of our students.”
Additionally, Mr. Laub is working to provide students with a sense of normalcy after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When we first moved in, we were so nervous about COVID. We were like, ‘we don’t want people eating together, they’re going to spread COVID,’ and now, since that’s not at the forefront, we can go back to some of the reasonable practices for being in a school, like not eating in the library,” he said.
However, there are still challenges. High school is often a stressful time for students, and that can mean negative impacts on students’ mental health. So Mr. Laub wants to better utilize Stable Group to improve students’ wellbeing.
“I think we could do more with mental health. We talk about it a lot … but I think it could be better, and I think that’s a challenge for us”
Last year, students learned about ACT- Acknowledge, Care, Tell, which is a method for suicide prevention that centered around acknowledging and supporting the person suffering, and contacting trusted adults. This year, Mr. Laub wants to expand that education further.
Mr. Laub made it clear that he wanted students to feel safe at school, no matter what. While he acknowledged that not everyone is excited for school, he hopes to create an environment where everyone feels welcome and safe.
“The goal is for kids to feel safe, comfortable and happy coming to school.”
