Brother Greg O'Donnell has been an educator for decades, the past eight years as president of Damien Memorial School in Kalihi. Above, students at the school gathered round O'Donnell for a photo during their lunch break on Wednesday.
The president is
in the house
Greg O’Donnell is on a mission
to educate young men in the best
traditions of the Christian Brothers
Greg O'Donnell, president of Damien Memorial School, says he didn't become a policeman like his dad, but he is following in his father's footsteps.
"He cared about people," O'Donnell said of his father, a cop in Chicago. "So in many ways I did follow in my dad's footsteps: He did it in law enforcement, I'm doing it in education."
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Who: Greg O'Donnell Title: President, Damien Memorial School Job: Oversees the school's business affairs
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Question: So what's it like running a whole school?
Answer: (Laughter) That's the challenge and also the beauty of the whole thing. I am the top guy and I get to make decisions that nobody is going to change and rescind. The buck really does stop here.
Q: Is president of the school the same thing as principal?
A: No. I've been a principal, but the principal is basically an academic person -- designs the curriculum, hires the teachers. I, in many ways, run the business of the school. I make sure the books are balanced, make sure we're following the laws on everything. But my biggest chore is to be the visionary. The leadership role is you take a look at where the problems are, and you go after those problems. You take a look at where the opportunities are, and you go after those opportunities. It's not a job description you read in a book. That kind of person shouldn't be a school president.
Q: What about the board of directors?
A: The board hires one employee, and that's me. They review my performance from time to time, but ultimately, they can basically hire or fire me and that's about it. It's not beyond firing the CEO, even though I'm a Brother, but my job is to make sure this school doesn't stay static, that we improve, that we maintain our mission.
Q: And what is the mission?
A: The mission of Damien is to provide a Catholic/Christian education to young men in the best traditions of the Christian Brothers.
Q: What are the Christian Brothers?
A: We're a religious order founded in Ireland in 1802. We have schools throughout he world.
Q: You're a Brother?
A: I am a Christian Brother. Kind of like a male nun, if you want to put it like that. I don't say Mass, we don't do the sacraments. My expertise is in education. My master's degree is in education, my bachelor's degrees are in math and physics. I've attended 15 universities. And the latest thing I did was a program in computer science at the University of Washington.
Q: When you're a Brother, is that like being a priest in terms of getting married?
A: That's right. If you took a picture of me, I'd look like a priest. But instead of being in service in a parish, we're professional school people.
Brother Greg O'Donnell, president of Damien Memorial School, likes to spend time walking around the school campus so he can interact with faculty, staff and students. Above, O'Donnell shared a few moments on Wednesday with Kathy Villaren and Michael Weaver in the faculty lounge. Villaren is the school secretary, and Weaver is principal of Damien's high school division.
A: We have two: the high school principal, who is Mike Weaver, and the middle school principal, Burt Tomita. We just started the middle school this year. That was one of my ideas. Sounds crazy, but it was a new idea to us. We were the last private high school in the state of Hawaii that did not have a middle school attached to it.
Q: When were you a principal?
A: I started teaching back in 1960. Then I kind of went from teacher, then athletic director and assistant principal and this and that. I've held every position you can name. Then in 1986, I became principal of O'Dea High School in Seattle.
After four years, I was asked if I would take another job, which was raising money for the Brothers' retirement fund. I did that for seven years. I raised money with direct mailing and had an office in Chicago. Traveled around the country raising money. Then in 1997, I was asked to come to Damien. We were having some financial problems, and I was always known as a guy who could figure out how to make the business work better, and we were able to do that, and we're now on a very firm financial footing.
Q: What's your least favorite part of your job?
A: (Pause) Oh, boy. I guess my least favorite part is when we have a student that doesn't do well, and we're trying everything we can. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, and when we see it's gone as far as it can, we say we're not able to meet your needs and they'll have to leave. It's gut wrenching because our mission is to take kids and do well with them. And when you don't succeed, that's very difficult.
Q: How do deal with teachers you're unhappy with?
A: Chain of command says the teacher reports to the principal, not the president. So I'll talk to the principal and ask him to take care of it. When I was a principal, if I'm talking about a sincere teacher, I would sit down face to face with the teacher and see if there was anything I could do to help. I would not be satisfied with anything less than the best. It's not a divine right to be a teacher. On the other hand, being a teacher is a very tough job, and just because they can't do it doesn't mean they're a bad person. Teachers need help more than anything, but if they're going to go coast, not on my watch.
Q: Who does the recruiting for the teachers?
A: That's a combined effort of the principals, myself, a lot of networking. Most of our teachers we get by references from other teachers and so on. Occasionally we run ads in the paper, but most jobs fill them- selves up before they ever get to the paper.
We have the opportunity that public schools don't have. They have the requirement that they hire certified teachers. We can hire teachers who are not certified in the public schools. So we have a teacher, for example, who's an Annapolis graduate, a former test pilot, 400 carrier landings, was in the aerospace business, and now he's teaching 10th grade geometry. We don't know if he's certified. We don't care.
Q: If there was one thing you could do to improve Hawaii's public schools, what would that be?
A: I think they should open themselves to non-certified teachers. I am certified by the way. But I had a problem for a short period of time because my certification was held up because I was lacking a credit in physical education. I have a master's degrees and I was being held up because I didn't have a credit in P.E. I think we need to take a more enlightened view of what we expect our teachers to know.
Q: What do you think about charter schools?
A: I think charter schools are a very good idea but I think they need to be regulated much tighter than they are. It's too wide of a window of opportunity for bad things to happen. With private schools like us, if we don't deliver a quality product, the people will just stop coming here. If a charter school, which gets state funds, doesn't deliver a quality product, they could run astray for a long time before they get called to task.
Q: What do you think about home schooling?
A: My experience is that we have some excellent students out of homeschooling. The people who are doing that in Hawaii are very good. We get two or three homeschooled students a year, and they're very good.
Q: Is there a daily routine that you have?
A: No. I hard schedule about 30 percent of my day. I soft schedule the other 70 percent, because I go where the challenges and opportunities are.
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