Benicia High’s incoming principal hopes to offer ‘stability, consistency, strong leadership’

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Damon Wright’s path to becoming principal of Benicia High School was anything but traditional.

Wright, 39, was born into a military family in Virginia and lived in Japan for five of his early years. From third grade through high school, he and his family lived in San Diego.

After attending junior college in Bakersfield, and before transferring to Sacramento State University — where he would eventually receive a bachelor’s degree in psychology — Wright had a conversation that sparked his interest in education.

“I worked at Denny’s as a host,” he recalled this week in an interview with The Herald. “My boss’s wife happened to be an elementary school principal. She gave me her business card.”

After Wright graduated, even though he had gone through a few wallets he had managed to keep that business card. “I needed a job, and she gave me a job as a guidance counselor. That got me started in education,” he said.

Wright later worked as a probation officer, monitoring work crews at an “honor camp” — a rehabilitation program for low-risk offenders — but kept “one foot in the door in education.”

Going back to school at National University in San Diego, he received his master’s degree in school counseling in 1999. After working as a school counselor for three and a half years, he moved to Northern California and joined California High School in San Ramon as a school psychologist.

Wright’s climb up the educational ladder continued when he obtained his administration credential at Sacramento State. He then became an assistant principal at California High, serving in that capacity for three years.

During the first year, he was put in charge of facilities, athletics, discipline, special education and the physical education department — and for Wright, that wasn’t enough. “I was fortunate enough to be promoted within a year to the Assistant Principal 1 position, where I was able to take on more,” he said.

“More” meant taking over the school’s ailing Engineering Academy program. “When I got it, it didn’t have the supervision it needed,” he said. “When I took it over, I had to pretty much work with my team and restructure the entire program.”

Wright and his team turned the academy around, to the point where students no longer wanted out of the program, and parents no longer wanted their children out.

Teachers, he said, went from not wanting to be involved to dedicating themselves so much that the program became a model for others. “(We) received a lot of praise,” he said.

Wright is also proud of the academic enrichment program he helped create in San Ramon to boost struggling students. “We took the students who were having academic difficulties and having issues connecting to something on campus. We provided them a place to do that,” he said. Teachers in the program would give the students academic mentoring, activities and project based learning opportunities.

“They attended an ‘A’ period class every other day for an hour,” Wright said. Since the period was a voluntary class, “it’s not like they were on campus anyway. We took students who historically were not able to attend school, or chose not to attend school, and they showed up regularly.”

Wright said he discovered the vacancy for Benicia High’s principal the way many did — through an educational job listing site, Edjoin. “Every morning and every night I would look at Edjoin because I liked to study the pulse of districts. Benicia came about.

“I thought it was an opportunity to at least throw my name in the hat and hopefully at least secure an interview and take it from there.”

Wright said he wants students take advantage of the opportunities they have in front of them. In this key formative period of their lives, he said, he wants students to sidestep avoidable mistakes.

“Like everyone, I’ve made some mistakes in my life. I don’t want to see students make some of the same mistakes that I’ve made in school — not taking advantage of the opportunities in front of me,” he said. “A student that has opportunity right in front of them and they don’t take advantage of it, it’s my pet peeve. I just want to do my best to motivate them to understand what could be in store for them if they just took advantage of what was in front of them.”

He added: “Students are our future. I look at the global achievement gap, and our country has fallen significantly behind others. It’s concerning. But I feel that working in public education, we have an opportunity to make a difference and try to provide our students with the skills needed not only to be successful if they choose to go to college, but just in the work place.”

Wright, who lives in American Canyon with his wife Blanca and their two daughters, Mya, 9; and Vanessa, 8, said he knows what he’ll bring to Benicia High.

“Stability, consistency, strong leadership, and just open communication — dialogue with all groups, all stakeholders. I want to engage stakeholders in the process, and I want to have healthy communication and healthy conversations about what’s going on with the school. I want their input, I believe in shared decision making.

“Ultimately I want what’s best for the kids,” he said. “Benicia is a high-performing school. I want to take it to the next level.”