quenon
When the first day of school rolls around for Fayette Country Public Schools on Aug. 15, Greg Quenon will be as antsy as the incoming freshmen at Henry Clay High School.
Quenon is the new principal of Henry Clay, coming to the high school after serving for six years as principal at Tates Creek Middle School.
“There’s the anxiety, there’s being nervous, there’s the excitement,” he said. “There are over 2,300 students at Henry Clay – that’s triple the size I’ve seen at the middle school level, and a lot more older kids.”
Prior to his tenure at Tates Creek Middle, Quenon worked for six years at Crawford Middle School – five as a teacher and one as associate principal – during which time he also served as the girls’ head tennis coach at Henry Clay. That experience, as well as the notoriety the high school has, made leading Henry Clay a desire for Quenon.
“It was one of those things in the back of my mind: this is where I want to be, at Henry Clay,” he said. “It’s the oldest high school, and Henry Clay has a reputation not only of athletics but academics and preparing students.”
Raised in Lexington and a “product of the Fayette County School System,” Quenon earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Milligan College outside of Elizabethton, Tenn., and his master’s degree in educational leadership and principal’s certification from Eastern Kentucky University. Currently, he is working on a doctorate at Morehead State University, which should be completed by 2014.
At 39, Quenon isn’t a typical leader for a high school, and he knows that students, and even fellow staff members, will respond differently to him than they would someone older, but he says his interpersonal skills will help him gain respect as he leads the students and administration through the transition of his first year.
“That’s the one thing I take great pride in, I build relationships really well with people,” he said. “I connect well with people no matter their age or who they are or where they come from. I believe that relationships are one of the most important things in redirecting a culture.”
Quenon’s youth also makes him privy to many of the newer technologies students use. He uses an iPhone and an iPad, he has a Facebook account, he communicates with students via Twitter – all applications he feels that can be utilized to enrich the learning environment.
“If you can incorporate that into the class, can you imagine how that engages that student? Now you’re speaking their language basically,” Quenon said. “I have a vision of creating our own high school app for Henry Clay where a kid can go on there, look at his schedule, look at his grades, it could be a way to submit homework.”
As the first few weeks and months unfold during the new school year, Quenon said he plans to walk the halls, listening to students and staff and teachers, and learning how he can steer the school toward some admirable goals.
“We want to be the top-performing high school in they city, that’s the first goal. Before we start looking at the state, we need to be No. 1 in the district,” he said. “We want to be a top five high school in the state of Kentucky. We want to be nationally recognized for things we are doing here for our kids.”