For over 2700 students, Portage High School is a place filled with opportunity. Each of those students has the chance to enjoy a high quality education, participate in a plethora of after school activities and perhaps most important of all, get to know a great group of people, comprised of both students and faculty members.
One of the primary reasons that Portage High School functions so effectively in providing its top tier educational experience is this week’s Portage Life in the Spotlight, PHS Principal Caren Swickard.
Swickard’s competitiveness and motivation have driven her to constantly enhance the production level of the school as a whole. She has been a member of the Portage Township Schools nearly all her life, starting elementary school in the PTS in second grade. The PHS graduate has developed a passion for her alma mater, which is another driving force that makes her strive to work hard.
“I love PHS,” Swickard said. “I don’t know if it was just because I was comfortable here as a student, but as a teacher and a coach back in the ‘80s Portage was on top. We were a powerhouse. I can think of many of our teams back then when I coached gymnastics that were ranked number one in the state. Wrestling, football, cross country, tennis, softball- I mean when I think back to all the coaches that were here, we were a team, we were all pulling for each other and we were winners.”
Swickard, who is in her eighth year as PHS Principal and 29th year in the Portage Township Schools, started her career in education as a teacher, then became an assistant principal at PHS before taking the position of Fegely Middle School Principal. After that, she returned to PHS to take her current post at the helm.
Through all her years in various capacities at PHS as a student, teacher and administrator, Swickard encountered a large number of mentors, including Indiana High School Athletic Association Board member Dusty Rhode. The former gymnastics coach brought her coaching mindset with her into the principal’s office.
“I feel like I’m still a coach, but I’m just coaching teachers now instead of coaching a team,” she said.
Swickard lists the school’s biggest accomplishment during her tenure as principal as raising academic standards and grades. She is extremely proud of the “A” ranking that Portage High School received from the state of Indiana for the 2011-2012 school year.
“Overall, the culture and the climate of our school are very good,” she said. “We’re bringing back the pride to our school, teachers and students. I think that my most important job is putting a good teacher in every classroom.”
In addition to the strides that PHS has made in the academic realm, Swickard takes pride in the large number of students that are involved in athletics, clubs and other extracurricular activities.
“My favorite part of my job is the after school stuff,” she said. “It’s seeing the kids in a setting where they are having a good time and connecting with each other and you get to see a lot of positive things happen.”
She also likes to see the student body come together like it did for the Homecoming football game against Michigan City on Sept. 28.
“It’s great to see that many students out there and we really haven’t had a winning season, so for us to get behind our boys is great,” Swickard said. “Every time we don’t succeed at something, we don’t give up. We keep fighting and we keep staying positive and in the end, we know that when we’re done, we’ve done our best and we’re going to work hard and make it better the next time.”
Swickard’s positive mindset shows through in some of the new efforts that she has put into place to motivate students. The Attendance Challenge rewards the class (seniors, juniors, sophomores or freshmen) with the best attendance rate for each grading period during the school year. The Tribe Pride Incentive Drawings allow teachers to hand out Tribe Pride Cards to reward students, who then enter the cards for a chance to win a prize in the drawing each month.
“We have a teacher leadership committee and we were sitting in there three or four years ago and it was the end of the year, but the teachers were kind of being negative about things and I said, ‘Okay, we don’t want to be negative. Let’s start talking about positive things and rewarding the kids for being positive and doing good things and see if that doesn’t just kind of blossom into more and more kids trying to be positive instead of focusing on the negative,’” Swickard said.
Swickard has no plans of departing from her position any time soon.
“My true passion is students and I think they keep me young, so I’m going to try to keep doing this as long as I can,” she said.