As always, there will be new faces at Liberty High School this year. Chief among them is the person in charge, Zachary Pless.

Pless is the new principal at Liberty High, taking the reins of JoAnn Severson who retired in June after 31 years with Benicia Unified School District. Pless received his master’s degree in educational leadership from UC Berkeley and has lived in Benicia with his family since 2003. However, during that time he has mostly been working in other districts. He was a history and theater teacher at Rodriguez High School in Fairfield, a coordinator for summer and after school programs at Berkeley Unified School District and a vice principal at Martinez Junior High School, where he has worked for the last three years. Now Pless will join Benicia Unified as the new administrator at Liberty, and he is excited to be able to work in the district. Particularly, he is looking forward to being able to work at a continuation high school.

“We have a lot of flexibility at a continuation high school,” he said. “It’s a small staff, small community, small classes. This is a school where every single kid is known by every single staff member. You can’t ever say that at any comprehensive high school of any significant size.”

“There are students who often times have struggled in school in the past,” he added. “It really is an opportunity and an ability for us to turn things around.”

It is a situation that Pless said he understands very well.

“I was a student who wasn’t always the most successful in high school, so I definitely have compassion and understanding about what it’s like to struggle in school,” he said.

Although there are often misconceptions in the community about Liberty and the types of students that go there, Pless said he has heard a lot of positive remarks from former students.

“I run into students all the time who have graduated from here, and when they think back to their time at Liberty it brings a smile to their face,” he said.

Additionally, Pless has heard many nice things from local churches and organizations as well as the district office about Liberty. Over the course of the summer, Pless has gotten to meet with all of the staff members for about an hour or two individually and is looking forward to having them all together next week for team building discussions. The flexibility and willingness of the staff is one of Pless’ favorite things about Liberty thus far along with community support.

“I think we have a lot of great community connections through the mentorship program we have as well as the sponsorship we get through Rotary and other organizations,” he said.

Pless highlighted a few main goals for Liberty. One was to utilize different structures for the advisory periods, where all of the students meet with one teacher for academic, emotional and social support.

“We’re going to put a lot of work around structures we can put in place to make those more efficient, (such as) better ways to talk to kids in those groups, better ways of working through conflicts in a productive way,” he said. “Everyone at Liberty feels like this is a family, but those are like little pods that exist. They’re like the mini families within the larger extended family. That’s one of the cores that we’re going to try and build up in the fall.”

Another major goal was to increase student involvement in internships and the community at large.

“The community does a lot to support us, and our kids do go out,” he said. “They volunteer at different functions throughout the community, but something that’s with every kid and in a consistent way is something that we’re going to experiment with probably into the spring.”

Pless said getting students to graduate remains an important goal for Liberty, and he also wants to make sure students have the support needed for after they graduate.

“After graduation, do we really feel like we’re doing a good job with all of our students that they have a plan, they have a next step, they have a future that’s ahead of them,” he said. “Futures change and they adapt, but do we feel confident that they at least have a good stab at it?”

Finally, Pless wants to change the perceptions that some in the community, including potential students, may have about Liberty.

“Sometimes what they hear about Liberty are falsehoods,” he said. “They hear that this is where the bad kids are and that kids are troubled, and that’s not the case. Most of the kids are here because they failed some classes and are behind in credits.”

Pless referred to Liberty as a “school of choice” for students 16 and older and wants to work on highlighting why a student would want to come to Liberty, including an accelerated path for those who want to graduate early or may just feel overwhelmed being at Benicia High School.

“I think part of it is marketing that and making sure that parents in the community feel like Liberty is an option for their children versus a last resort,” he said.

Liberty’s school year, along with all other BUSD schools, will begin on Monday, Aug. 21.