INDIANAPOLIS — It's a full circle assignment of Dr. Eugene White, who returned Thursday to lead North Central High School nearly 30 years after serving as the school's principal.
The Metropolitan School District of Washington Township board approved White as interim principal at a meeting Wednesday night.
Hours later, White was back in the hallways, greeting North Central students.
"There are great students here. They really probably need more attention than those kids who were here in the 1990s when I came," White said.
The North Central High School students of today weren't even born when White last served as the Panthers' principal in the early 1990s. He had some of their parents as students and is committed to connecting with today's teens, too.
"This is their only job. I mean, this is a job for the future," White said.
White said the school's student body today is substantially more diverse and he's already discovered they've been changed by the coronavirus pandemic.
"I think that's a big step in just how they approach school after being out," he said. "We should be over it now, but we're not quite over that."
On the first day of his interim gig, White was already in the groove.
"Thomas Wolfe said, I believe, 'You can never go home again.' But I'm home for a little while, but I'm not going to stay here," White said.
He's committed to nine weeks, including a rush to spring break, then graduation.
"A lot of young people here are not quite ready to learn. They want to go through the motions," White said. "We're gonna have to get them back into the groove of taking this seriously and not just walking through the motions."
His goal is to set up a new principal for success by their projected start date in June.