Lane wants to make this school year known to the entire student population that school is a safe place.

After graduating high school, Kerry Lane attended Northwest Missouri State for her undergraduate degree. After graduating college, she began her graduate studies in administration at the University of Missouri- Kansas City. As she takes the reins at Olathe East, she is also pursuing her doctorate degree at the University of Kansas.

Lane first started her teaching career in 1996 when California Trail Middle School opened. After staying there for a couple years, she became hired as an assistant principal at Santa Fe Trail Middle School.

Olathe North welcomed Lane as an assistant principal before she transferred back to Santa Fe Trail. This year would have been her tenth year at Santa Fe Trail.

“I have a large learning curve because I’ve been out of the high school for a while. I am really counting on a lot of people to remind me what AP, College Now, college scholarships, and the ACT are. Those are all things that I knew when I taught freshman, but it’s been ten years, and a lot of things have changed.”

Lane’s goal this year is trying to be a good listener because she says that Olathe East has so many things that she never had when she was in high school.

“I want to watch, observe, and see if there is anything I can do to help to improve things or give suggestions. I don’t know if I am as nervous than rather I am asking a lot of questions”

Her biggest challenge she said will be getting to know everybody since the school with 150 teachers is so much bigger going from a middle school with 60 teachers.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the school. A gift will be handed out to each of the students. In the spring, the alumni will come back to open the time capsule.

‘Everything is new: the first day of school, the first homecoming, first prom, and first graduation. I think I’m anticipating everything. One cool thing about Olathe East is that you have the most people going to away games.”

“Freshman definitely need to try different things, take risks, learn about something you might not even known you were interested in. Join journalism, try out for a play. This is the time to do all of this.”

“Sophomores should take more of a leadership role to work with the rest of the school. You have sat back and watched as a freshman, and we still have three years with you. They should learn to become the new leaders.”

“Junior and senior year are tough. You have a lot of pressure to think about college and what you want to do with your life. My biggest advice for juniors and seniors is that this is not the end of the world. This is the beginning, and it is only the beginning. You don’t have to have all your decisions made; it is very okay to not be sure about what you are doing. But start knowing where your strengths are. Learn where your passions are, and then see if you can match your strength with your passion, and you will be happy.”

“You guys and the senior class will be special to me because they are both the year that I came. I will always remember it.”

Next year, Olathe East plans to create a new 21st century program at the school called Future Teachers. This new program will be let transfer students wanting to teach, coach, teach special education, or history to kids of all grade levels.

The existing leadership program plans to switch their curriculum slightly by having an emphasis on law and administration.

The environmental design program will have a name change to just design to help ensure students understand the overall concept of the program, eliminating the misconceptions with the thought about the class.

A sports leadership program led by Assistant Principal and Athletic Director Amanda Faunce created this summer. So far, 54 Olathe East students have been meeting once a month. They came up in the summer and completed a book study on how to be a leader before school started.

Lane excitedly anticipates the new school year as she meets the students and teachers, while making important decisions to make the school year successful.

Blythe Dorrian // Co-Editor