SNOHOMISH — The 2,000 students are long gone, soaking up the sun and heading off to summer jobs.
Gone, too, are all the teachers.
Snohomish High School Principal Diana Plumis on Monday quietly slipped off the campus and into retirement.
Her 34-year career in education was one filled with contrasts. She taught night school for 10 years to students in Seattle still trying to earn their diplomas in their late teens and early 20s. She helped mentally disabled students find jobs. She taught Asian history and comparative religion at Seattle Prep, a private college-prep high school, and later became the school’s principal.
When she landed in Snohomish 11 years ago, Plumis thought she would be the principal of a new large high school. Instead, an initial campaign to pass a bond measure to build Glacier Peak High School failed and she spent the next six years as principal of the Snohomish Freshman Campus. Five years ago, she took over as principal at Snohomish High School.
She said she will look back with fond memories at her time at Snohomish High and isn’t concerned she didn’t get to open the new $88.9 million Glacier Peak campus.
“This school has such as good feel to it,” she said from her largely emptied room last week. “You get that feeling here that the kids like each other.”
She also leaves knowing she played an important role planning for Glacier Peak, which will open in September.
“I was offered the opportunity to move up there, but I wanted to stay here,” she said. “As I said to James Dean (Glacier Peak’s principal), ‘Just invite me to the opening.’ I just feel so happy that it’s up and running.”
In her time at Snohomish, Plumis has seen steady improvement in test scores and growth in student activities and the school’s career and technical education program. Also important to her was fostering a sense of respect and connection between historic Snohomish High School and Glacier Peak.
School district officials say Plumis was a strong leader.
“I think she was just exactly what we needed the last five years on a number of levels, getting the staff and students prepared for the new (state) graduation requirements and dealing with preparing for a new high school,” said Betty Robertson, assistant superintendent in the Snohomish School District.
Superintendent Bill Mester said Plumis would agonize over students who struggled in school — and pushed just as hard to try to improve offerings for top students.
“Diana was truly there for all students,” Mester said. “That’s what we came to see so readily in her.”
Plumis said she will leave the district knowing the two high schools are in good hands with Dean at Glacier Peak and Beth Porter, who was principal at the Snohomish Freshmen campus and an assistant at Snohomish High.
Plumis said she could see coming out of retirement to work in the education field, but it would most likely be at a different pace than running a large comprehensive high school.
“Whatever I’m going to do next, it will not be getting up at 5:30 in the morning,” she said with a laugh. “I am at the point in my life with the age of my mother, my husband and myself when I want to have a little more time for our family and myself. This is a pretty all-consuming job.”
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or e-mail stevick@heraldnet.com.
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