On the first day of a new job most people walk in nervous, with butterflies in their stomach. Mr. Lucas, however, walked into Plano High School on August 22nd as the new Dean of Students with confidence and high expectations for the school year. In previous years, Mr. Lucas worked at Plano as a Physical Education teacher and decided to make the switch because he felt he could help students more, by dealing with them all day long, minute by minute. He stated, “my goal for the year is to provide a safe, clean, learning enviroment,” he continued, “high school moves fast and I want students to set their future plans.” In order to help with their futures he wants to increase the number of graduates and those that are attending college. He’s also hoping to reduce the amount of tardies and unexcused absences.

As part of his new responsibilities, he had to create a new set of rules for the 07-08 school year. He believes the new parking policy is helping with tardies, since it’s first come, first serve for parking spot. Students have started to arrive earlier, and as a result the number of tardies has gone down since last year. The students who are consistently tardy are put on a “no pass list” and are not allowed to leave their classrooms throughout the school day. He stated that he had no intentions of changing the parking situation he stated “I’m going to leave it the way it is, I can’t be an effective dean if I’m out in the parking lot checking cars, making sure everyone is in the right place” he continued “I need to be in the school, making sure kids are getting to their classes on time.” Although most things seem to be going smoothly, the new lunch system is another story. “Its been a struggle,” Lucas said “It’ll eventually get better, right now the middle school is working out all the kinks and once they do we’ll be getting the finger print scanners”

There are a lot of new rules students have to adjust to, but Mr. Lucas doesn’t think that the rules have become any more strict this year. He doesn’t like to bring up the past of students behavior, he thinks everyone deserves a fresh start. Overall Mr. Lucas said he has seen an improvement in students behavior so far and wants to continue to see advancements as the year goes on.