For a week or so, until the contract was signed Monday, Eben Perkins and Olivia Hebert were asked not to discuss their work as part of a committee selecting a new athletic director for Westbrook High School.
The pair, students at the school, were part of a panel of 14 that also included coaches, parents and administrators, and all were asked to keep the candidates names to themselves.
The students proved as committed to the process as the others.
“My parents asked me,” said Perkins, an incoming senior, “and all I told them was that we’d narrowed it down to two.”
The committee eventually chose Todd Sampson, the AD at Lake Region HS for the past six years. Sampson signed his contract Monday.
“Eben asked some great questions and we had some great dialogue, and I could see Olivia’s confidence grow at the second interview,” said Sampson. “For these two student-athletes to be a part of the hiring process – that’s part of what sold me on Westbrook.”
Principal Marc Gousse said that having students participate in important decisions that relate to their school is something he advocated early in his tenure.
“It’s one of the things I’m most proud of since coming to Westbrook: having kids on school committee and having students involved in hiring for administrative and coaching positions,” said Gousse. “I can’t think of one instance where students have been part of the process and there’s been any negative connotation. What we do is about kids. Why wouldn’t we want them as part of the process?”
Perkins and Hebert, both student-athletes, were chosen because, Gousse said, “a cross-section of students and faculty members respect them. Without question they were going to honor the process, and they kept it close to the vest.”
The duo took part in formulating questions, interviewing the candidates and evaluating their responses.
“Some of the questions were already developed and we were able to look at them and make suggestions,” said Hebert, who’ll be a sophomore in September. “We had six candidates and we brought them in and we had 13 questions that we asked each of them.”
The committee, including the students, came to see Sampson as the applicant best suited for the job.
“He came off as the most genuine,” Perkins said. “He had the experience, he knew what he was doing and he didn’t try to come off something different than he was.”
“When it came down to it, we felt like he seemed like someone we could go talk to,” added Hebert.
Sampson was flattered by the students’ comments and said that he has to live up to their expectations.
“Hopefully, they’ve just seen a snapshot of me,” he said. “Hopefully, in a year or two years, they’ll be able to say the same thing.”
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