Inside McKinley’s office is Susana Garcia, the hard working principal of McKinley. 

Principal Garcia is in her first year as principal of MIT, and she is working tirelessly to gain the respect of fellow staff members and students.  

Garcia says her favorite part about being a principal is  “Being able to see and interact with the students.”  Garcia loves to learn and make friends with MIT’s many students. She is always saying hi and engaging them in conversation. Garcia stays very busy, as her schedule stretches from early in the morning to late in the day,

 “I come very early at 6:30 am.” After she arrives she writes the announcements. School for Mckinley starts at 8:00 am! When all the students arrive she and her staff take away everybody’s phones. If people are caught keeping their phone, it gets confiscated. She then calls the student’s parents and they have to pick up their kids’ phones at the end of the day. 

At 9:40 she does yard duty, she then does lunch at 11:40 on every weekday except for Thursday and Wednesday because Wednesdays and Thursdays are block days  where the periods are longer. After that she checks her email and attends to other duties such as getting kids in trouble for their actions. 

Even in her first year, Principal Garcia has made great progress in making MIT a better place. After there were multiple fights between NSA and MIT students last year, Garcia wanted to make a change. Under Garcia’s guidance, Garcia noted that “Even though it’s only November, there is more safety” and “Students behave better”. Even after some bad experiences in the past, Garcia thinks that the relationship between NSA and MIT students has gotten a lot better 

“Students respect each other now,” she said.  Garcia is very proud of making McKinley a better learning environment for the students.

Garcia also notes that NSA students should know the stories of MIT students before they judge them.Some MIT students may be going through a hard time at school or home, she pointed out

Garcia also has changed some rules for MIT to make it a better place. For example, every student has electives as well as enrichment. They can choose one class that may be a topic that they might be interested in and the teachers also choose one so the student can have more knowledge when they get to high school. However, Principal Garcia is far from done. One thing she wants changed is, “Better enrichment would be great,” she said.