Porter settles in as new Lovell High School principal

New LHS leader emphasizes collaboration, student leadership and strong instruction

A few weeks after beginning her new role as the principal of Lovell High School, Dr. Cynthia Porter is settling in and says returning to a school building already feels like the right move.

“I’m having fun for the first time in a couple of years,” Porter said. “It was the right move to step back into the building and out of a district office.”

Porter comes to Lovell after serving as Director of Secondary Programming and Post-Secondary Readiness in a Wisconsin district of approximately 11,700 students. While she valued the experience, she missed the daily interaction of a school.

“You’re spending time around the same 20 people in a building, the district office staff,” she said. “Everyone’s very pigeonholed.”

Porter is originally from Wisconsin but has considerable ties to Wyoming. She previously taught high school math in Douglas, served two years as an assistant principal in Rock Springs and later served as principal in Torrington.

“I love everything about Wyoming,” Porter said shortly after being hired. “I think of Wyoming as my home.”

Porter holds degrees in mathematics and secondary education from Michigan Technological University and a doctorate in educational leadership and curriculum from the University of Phoenix. Her career also includes four years of active duty in the Air Force and six years in the Army National Guard.

Since arriving in Lovell, Porter said she has been impressed by the people she will be working with.

“I have felt supported,” she said. “I really got the sense that people here really care deeply. They set their feet on the ground every morning with the intent to do good things. And the community seems very supportive, very tight-knit.”

Students should not expect sweeping changes when they arrive for the new school year.

“I don’t think students are going to see anything different,” Porter said. “I think we’re just going to continue reinforcing high-quality instruction in every classroom.”

One change will happen largely behind the scenes. Lovell High School and Lovell Middle School teachers will work more closely together this year. Once a month during Friday early-release time, teachers from similar subject areas will have two hours to collaborate.

“We’re going to do some more intentional learning together,” Porter said, with the goal of creating “more consistency and uniformity” as students progress through the district.

“Good teaching is good teaching,” she added. “We should all be doing that by learning together.”

Porter has also invited staff members to meet with her individually. She has asked them what is going well, what they love about the school, where they see a need for growth or support and one particularly direct question: “What would you do if you were me?”

“There’s been a pretty consistent feedback loop,” she said.

Porter also wants students themselves to take a larger role in the life of the school. She met this week with student body president Gabe Buchholz and other members of her student leadership team as they prepared to help incoming freshmen during back-to-school activities.

“What I believe in is having a student-led, facilitated-by-the-faculty building,” Porter said.

The discussion included what student government should lead and coordinate and how those students can develop leadership skills in themselves and others.

“We talked about their role as the building government, basically,” she said, and about “what opportunities can we create so that the students have that opportunity.”

That fits with the philosophy Porter described when she was hired. She sees high school as an important final opportunity to push and prepare young people for what comes next.

“For me, high school is the end of the road for kids,” she said. “It’s our last opportunity to really help them launch into their adult selves and their next big steps for the rest of their lives.”

Porter also has an athletic background that includes 20 years in martial arts. She said she values sports and extracurricular activities while keeping their role in perspective.

“I appreciate what the extracurricular activities bring to the human experience,” she said. “I also understand that it’s pretty hard to function in this world if you’re a really great basketball player, but you can’t read very well.”

“I don’t lose sight of either of those things and the place that they hold in the human experience.”

And after years of hoping for an opportunity to return to Wyoming, Porter now has a new team to support.