DeKalb West School has a new Assistant Principal at the helm following Joey Agee’s transfer to Head Men’s Basketball Coach at D.C.H.S. DeKalb County native Seth Willoughby was selected to fill the vacancy.
“With anything new, you understand what’s going on but you’re still understanding all the whys behind,” Seth Willoughby said. “I’m asking a ton of questions. I’m figuring things out pretty quickly, but I know I’ve still got a lot to learn.”
Schools Director Patrick Cripps says DWS Principal Sabrina Farler made the hiring recommendation after interviewing several candidates.
“Mr. Willoughby has been at the high school, so we’ve got to see him grow,” Cripps said. “Actually, my first year as director was his first year of teaching. We hired him as a Biology teacher then, and we’ve got to see him grow as a teacher. The big thing is his love for the kids and for DeKalb County. He wants to be here. He wants to work here.”
Cripps who formerly was a School Counselor, Assistant Principal and Principal at the D.C.H.S., has seen Willoughby in action as a student at the high school.
“I got to see him grow as a young freshman into a man as a senior playing sports with the basketball team and seeing his leadership skills as an athlete. We’re excited to have him. He’s coming into a great staff he gets to work with that will support him. Everything will be flying by him this year. It will slow down eventually for him. DeKalb West is lucky to have him.”
A 2010 graduate of D.C.H.S., Willoughby majored in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Tennessee Tech University.
“By the powers that be, I wound up in education. I remember telling my mom after church one day that I liked the degree I was getting as I was still in my undergrad, but it just hit me. Whatever I do I want to make a difference. I think education found me.”
“With that degree, you kind of have to move off from home a pretty good ways in order to start out, and then most of the time you’ve got to work your way back. I was really, really close with my grandmother who had a farm down in Temperance Hall. She wasn’t in the best of health so that played a big role in me wanting to stay close to home. DeKalb High School happened to reach out and say, “Hey, what if you thought about teaching biology?”
Willoughby moved into the Biology teaching job in 2015, and though he enjoyed his time in the classroom, he wanted to expand the difference he makes to the entire student body.
“The classroom is great, but the more that I’ve been around education I understand that your leaders within your building can have a very great impact on all students. So, rather than only having an opportunity to make a difference for a hundred kids. Now, I’m able to do that with 400 kids. That’s the way I looked at it. I know we’re only a couple of weeks into school but being around so many different students and being able to have a positive impact on them and help them to grow as the humans they are is something so special to me.”
Willoughby already had a couple of connections to the administration before coming on board. The former assistant principal, Joey Agee, was his middle school basketball coach and Principal Sabrina Farler was his 4th grade teacher.
“I’ve heard great things about this school and how she runs it. I wanted the opportunity to see what the West School is about because I’ve heard many great things about it.”
A product of the DeKalb County Schools, Willoughby attended Smithville Elementary School, Northside Elementary School the first year it opened, DeKalb Middle School and finally to D.C.H.S. All along the way he experienced teachers who were influential in his raising.
“The first one I remember was Ms. Betty Hickey in Kindergarten. She was a sweet soul, and she had a great impact on me. I learned so much that Kindergarten year. Another teacher would be Ms. Linda Franklin, 7th grade Science. She had a way of talking to everyone when she taught Science. She got everybody involved every single day, and even if she had behavioral problems, she somehow would spin that into a nice way to get students to do what she wanted them to do, and I thought that was a really neat thing. She just had a special way about how she interacted with the students. Coach K [Dylan Kleparek] at the high school was a great teacher, and he’s also been a great mentor while I was up there at the high school. I feel like he and Ms. Franklin had a lot of the same characteristics. They related to the students very well, very understanding, and just have a way of getting students to do what they wanted them to do and make an impact on them.”
When the last school bell of the day rings, Willoughby can be found on the farm of his late grandmother with his new bride, Mackenzie, who also began a new job recently as Speech-Language Pathologist at Kids Express Therapy Services in Smithville. The two tied the knot on July 1 of this year.
“I met my wife, Mackenzie, for the first time in the hallway of the high school because that was her first year moving down here from northern Illinois, and she was a Speech-Language Pathologist there. Getting into education helped me to find Mackenzie.”
“We’re out there with the dogs and the cows and things like that. It’s really fun out there. My dad’s down there every day taking care of the day to day chores and we’re usually working on some type of project. That’s our form of golf in a way. If I’m not farming or kayaking, I’m probably picking a guitar somewhere. I love music. It’s a great outlet and something I stumbled across in college when I didn’t have basketball anymore. I still play out and about every now and then. I feel like music really brings people together.”
Willoughby has stepped into the administrative role for the first time in his career, and he’s already making a difference in the lives of students at DWS.
