At the start of the 2019-2020 school year, Mr. Solomon entered Leesville Road High School as the principal and began making his mark on the students and staff. Solomon arrived at Leesville from Wake Young Men’s Leadership Academy. He formerly held the principal position at a school of a significantly smaller size, with approximately 252 students. Leesville, being close to 2,600 students, has to be a huge adjustment.
Growing up in eastern North Carolina, Solomon is a husband, father, co-owner of a gym, a huge fan of A and T University, and a “simple man,” he stated, when asked to describe himself outside of school.
He thrives on working with young students and loves seeing them reach their fullest potential.
This being Solomon’s first full school year here at Leesville, he said it has been, “overall great, and we have a great bunch of students here.”
Solomon is also grateful for the “love and affinity” the students have for the school.
Being former principal at a school he started in 2012, Solomon had the power to hire who he wanted, set the culture, set the rules, giving him a lot of creativity in the beginning of his previous school.
Entering Leesville, a school that has been around 26 years versus five years, everything has been a change for Solomon, yet he is embracing it with a positive mindset, stating that “change is a process.” As Solomon navigates through this school year, he said, “Everyone has been very accommodating, warm, and receptive.”
A huge change Solomon has made is the grace period given to students with their tardies. When he was here in the fourth quarter last year, Solomon noticed that students were extremely stressed over getting to class on time, fearing the punishment of lunch detention per tardy. Now, Solomon gives students four tardies with no consequence, giving students who are only late a few times, no consequences. Of course this was not to incentivise being late, however he says this should fix “punishing the kids who were late just that one time.” This change is extremely generous and beneficial towards students, for Solomon knows some things are out of student’s control.
“The one constant is change. The way to be fully successful is to be flexible, adaptable, but always use your voice in a productive fashion,” said Solomon, a direct message to the student body.
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