This year, our school has had the absolute pleasure of meeting our new assistant principal, Mr. DiCaprio! Fitting in wonderfully, he even agreed to an interview. From questions surrounding his career to more get-to-know-him questions, this interview is a wonderful introduction to our assistant principal.

The interview started with a cheerful introduction followed by some very kind words shared by Mr. DiCaprio, agreeing to some questions regarding his career and time at Mohawk thus far and in the near future. To start, he was asked about his own personal feelings concerning Mohawk and how he has been liking it. Our new assistant principal had nothing but generous and open-minded thoughts on our school, going as far as to say, “I absolutely love it. There are great families, great students.” and, “I love my start here, I plan on being here the rest of my career, so I’m excited, ” wonderful overview of his initial outlook on our school and community.

Mr. DiCaprio is a well-educated man who has been certified as an elementary education teacher, a special education teacher, and also a principal. Even more impressive, he is only five classes short of receiving his superintendence letter. His only comment pertaining to the future was, “So, if not, maybe someday be principal here. Or maybe someday even look into superintendent in the future,” but he was also planning on continuing as the assistant principal, specifically to work with the students, which is his favorite part of the job. He also loves that our classes are able to be both educational, fun and make good use of our technology. Mr. DiCaprio commented on advancing our technology-use even further and generally taking advantage of the vast amount of technological facilities that are at our disposal.

Taking a closer look at Mr. DiCaprio’s past, he was asked if this is where he saw himself being when he was younger. Surprisingly, this actually was one of Mr. DiCaprio’s dream careers. Mr DiCaprio stated, “So, my joke is always I either wanted to be a dentist, a professional baseball player, an actor, or maybe a principal. So, ironically, I’m still possibly living out one of my dreams.” as a response. When questioned about advice for students and how they can better themselves academically, Mr. DiCaprio was very adamant to assert the importance of being well-rounded. He believes that every class is important and that, in the future, anything from school could be important. Mr. DiCaprio also said, “Then, the other thing I would just say is just be open to all different types of people- that’s really important, that’s an important lesson to learn.”

Delving further into Mr. DiCaprio’s personal opinions rather than his professional ones, we inquired about his favorite subject and or class during his high school years. Mr. DiCaprio thinks that it is best to be well-rounded and seemed to be exactly that in high school, though he mentions a small struggle with math. Despite enjoying a majority of classes, including English and physical education, Mr. DiCaprio remarks that his top two favorite classes were social studies and science. As a seemingly adventurous and flexible student, Mr. DiCaprio also participated in multiple school activities. With sports, he says, “I played baseball the whole way through and I even played adult baseball, so I played kinda in college too. And then I played basketball and football up until, I think, seventh or eighth grade.” This doesn’t conclude his list of activities. Mr. DiCaprio says that he engaged in the school play and student council, while also being the pure leadership president.

As a continuance of Mr. DiCaprio’s sport life, we asked about how he felt about our sport teams. Mr. DiCaprio says that he is incredibly proud of our teams for being able to juggle both their academics and their sports. Mr. DiCaprio mentions, “I think with a lot of the student athletes, the big thing I always tell them is you gotta remember it’s a student athlete and not the other way around.” before saying that academics need to be the highest priority for students. However, he also says that when students are able to support their grades along with sports, they will be far more prepared for the real world. From teaching students responsibility to leadership, sports overall improve a student’s preparedness for the real world.

Mr. DiCaprio was very proud to report that the staff and students have both been treating him with the utmost respect. As he spoke, he says that the staff of our school have been incredibly nice, and even welcoming, while the students have been respectfully interacting with him. Mr. DiCaprio also mentions his professional relationship with Mr. Meehan, saying, “Mr. Meehan’s been a great, great colleague of mine, helping me learn things that even I still need to work on and learn throughout the way.” Finally, his personal opinion on detentions/in-school suspensions, stating that he doesn’t want to give them out, but he believes that misbehavior calls for punishment. Overall, fortunately, Mr. DiCaprio says that everyone, from staff members to students and families, have exceeded his expectations.

Altogether, Mr. DiCaprio has an abundance of kind things to say about our school and our community. From his thoughts on our school in general to his personal opinion regarding how he has been treated, he spoke only positive words when answering our questions. This interview was an amazing look into some more personal details about Mr. DiCaprio and some details about his high school life/education.