Principal Garrison Answers Key Questions Regarding Student Life

The connection between the student body and the faculty brings all members of the school together. Therefore, we work to improve this connection through our annual interviews with the principal and president of our school. Each year, the Roundup staff works to prepare questions for Principal Mr. Garrison that we think directly correlate to student life. We believe these interviews serve as the method by which students can feel connected to our administration and have their urgent questions on school topics answered.

We’re trying to create spaces where you can have some of that balance. Without it, you can’t do all the things that you guys do. – Tom Garrison

Peter Loh: Mr. Garrison, do Jesuit’s teachings or messages differ depending on current events that are occurring outside of the school? 

Mr. Garrison: Absolutely. We have to respond to what’s going on in the world around us and we also have to do it in light of what our school’s mission is. That actually ties in with kind of how we position ourselves with the curriculum that we teach in the classes. Have you guys seen the Catholic Social teaching posters in your classrooms? One of the things we have to do is make sure that we are responding to current events in ways that align with Catholic social teaching. The short answer is yes.

Peter Loh: With the rise of social media, what do you think has changed the most as far as the culture of the school and the students? 

Mr. Garrison: Wow. There’s a lot to that. I think one of the things that has changed is the way we interact with each other. Now, I’ve been pretty proud of our guys because I’ve got my phone right beside me. And it’s real easy to just have your face buried in your phone all the time. I think you guys are pretty good at finding the balance to that, but sometimes I think we all slip into this kind of zombie state where we just get online. I have had issues over the years where there were disciplinary situations around social media. When I started this job–there was no social media. I mean, there were no smartphones, so we didn’t really have to deal with that. But by and large, you know, I think you guys do a pretty good job of navigating that.

Peter Loh: Was there anything before social media that was the societal norm that kind of influenced how the students would act or has social media completely changed the game? 

Mr. Garrison: Well, I think social media has completely changed the game. In the past it probably would’ve been, you know, current events, news, and things like that, but it was much more localized. You know, I can remember crosstown rivalries. You know, a high school down the street, we would have a rivalry with them, but we didn’t really get too worked up about a rivalry with a team that was much farther away. Now you guys, you can banter with these other schools on social media. Doesn’t matter if they’re here, you know, five miles away, 10 miles away, 20 miles away, that’s social media. There’s no boundary anymore. Back in the day, it was more localized and more whatever was right in front of us. 

Peter Loh: What benefits would you say social media has brought to the school?

Mr. Garrison: Well, you guys are much more connected than my generation and I think there are all kinds of benefits to that. I think you guys can make change happen much more quickly than my generation. I’ve seen good changes come out of that as well. I mean, little things like getting the theme out for a Friday night game, but that’s a silly example, but it’s real, you know?

You can get 1,100 students kind of going in the same direction very quickly and y’all are good at that. When we’ve seen tragedy in our community, you guys are also very good at making sure everyone is informed and aware, and on the same page. So I think the greatest benefit is the ability for y’all to communicate with each other very quickly.

Logan Thompson: Does the administration have any particular goals for this school year? 

Mr. Garrison: I don’t think we want to talk about it too much or belabor it, but, you know, we’ve come out of the pandemic. I think last year when I did this meeting, we were wearing masks, right? So one of the things on our mind is to make sure that if there are gaps, that if you guys, you know, just because of the nature of the education system across the world, in the last two or three years, we want to make sure that you are all caught up, right?

You might have noticed things like IXL or ALEKS. I think ALEKS is the math program and IXL the English grammar.  Those things can be tailored to the individual. So let’s say I have a problem with factoring, but you don’t and we’re in the same class. You could plug me into some exercises on something like ALEKS and make sure I’m caught up. You need that knowledge and you got to keep moving forward in your learning. That’s one goal.

Another goal, and this probably, you know, I don’t know if students need to think about this too much, but schools are accredited; about every five to seven years you go through an accreditation cycle. We’re in one of those cycles right now. So we’re working on our accreditation with an organization called Cognia. We’re also working on our sponsorship review with the Jesuit province which comes in and says, yes, this is a Jesuit school. We’ve examined it, they’ve done a self-evaluation and reported to us, and we found some areas for growth. There have been some areas for commendation. We’ve found some areas for new ways of thinking that happen every five or seven years.

One of the things we’re always trying to do is work on making sure that all of our departments have a vision statement, that aligns with the mission statement. And that all of our classes within those departments have principles that they’re teaching and that align with the vision of the department and the mission of the school. That kind of alignment does not happen by accident. You have to have meetings, and you have to schedule times to talk about it. You have to debate opinions that may not align. That is always going on behind the scenes. 

Logan Thompson: How has the security of our school changed in light of recent school violence in our own state?

One of the big things at any school at any time is making sure doors are locked, not propped. Having the key fob on your lanyard is one way that we can make sure the doors are locked instead of having to leave them open for not just you guys, but anyone else who might want to come in and do harm or cause trouble here. So, it was a big push this year to make sure everyone was wearing their ID at all times. There are other reasons to have IDs in any organization, any enclosed system like a school. We make sure the people who are in here belong in here, and the people who do not belong in here are not in here. That’s why Mr. Wallace is making such a big deal out of even wearing a temporary one.

Y’all have done a good job of doing that this year. I’m really grateful for that. We worried about it in the summer and you guys were wonderful. Then there were some other behind-the-scenes things that happened. We met with the Dallas police over the summer. We reviewed our safety protocols, we reviewed our lockdown drills, and things like that. Those are kind of ongoing things anyways. 

Kevin Babu: Over the summer there’s been a lot of construction behind the Anderson Lot and just a bunch of construction over the past years. Could you tell us more about the school’s plans for the new athletic facilities?

Mr. Garrison: Absolutely. Yeah. So I’ll start here on the plaza and then we’ll go down to the Anderson Lot. The plaza just outside of the Ranger connection now, there are a lot of pieces to it. If you’ve been able to kind of see through that fence or look over from the weight room or something, you’ll see that there’s going to be a water feature in that plaza. That cross will also be returned to that space. Within that, there’ll be something that I’m imagining like Hughes Hall in this round seating area. It’ll be turfed and will be a really pleasant place to sit and hang out. It’ll tie in with the Terry Center and the athletic building to make the space flow better. So imagine when all of that is done. In a Friday night game situation, people can hang out there and mingle. One of the things we learned over the last few years is outside spaces that you guys are comfortable hanging out in are going to be very valuable to have in the future. So it’ll be a nice, comfortable outside space to spend time, have receptions or classes even. That’s not exactly athletic, but it’s part of that construction process.

Then when you go south to the Anderson Lot, they’re putting in an athletic facility right there that will have locker rooms and some training facilities. The plan will be to house lacrosse and I don’t wanna get this wrong, but I know lacrosse will be down there and golf, cycling, and I believe rugby. I know wrestling will be down there. And then next to that will be two fields, two turf fields. So we’re gonna, you know, increase the area of practice, field services, we’ll have locker room facilities that are close to those fields and still have the parking. It’ll be nice to have the field space especially.

Kevin Babu: I remember freshman year we had the old bell schedule. But when we were going into Covid 19, we changed the bell schedule, right? So could you tell us more about the reasons behind this change?

Mr. Garrison: Sure. Well, there were lots of reasons but to sum it up, I’ll say we had a few goals we were trying to accomplish. One of the goals was longer class periods, but not too much longer. Classes used to be either 41 or 45 minutes. So we added about 10 minutes to the classes. Which makes a difference, to go to a traditional block like other schools have, they would be 90 minutes and we didn’t think we wanted really 90-minute classes. 50 to 55 minutes feels right. That was one thing that was accomplished. But we couldn’t go to hour-long classes and still have eight periods a day and still have lunches and things like that. We had to come up with something creative to change the number of classes in the day.

The other thing we wanted was we wanted each class to have free time at the same time. Like these PRT moments around the lunch periods when the entire freshman class is free, or the entire sophomore class. That was not part of the schedule before this new one. Then the other thing we wanted was community time. We didn’t have anything like community time before, but you know there were a lot of important things that you guys do while you’re in high school.

You do the academics, you do the athletics, but the extracurriculars are also equally important. We wanted to make sure that, you know, somebody who was in a sport could still participate in a club. That’s because that’s what your grownup life is gonna be like. Your adult life is gonna have all these things that you have to learn how to balance. We’re trying to create spaces where you can have some of that balance. Without it, you can’t do all the things that you guys do.

Anthony Nguyen: Recently many colleges have become test optional. How does that affect Jesuit students in like their college finding operation?

Mr. Garrison: Yeah. This is a good question. This is the million-dollar question right now for guys applying to colleges. I’m going to defer a little bit. I’ll answer what I can, but I’m also going to say this would be a good one for a discussion with our college placement counselors. The answer is it depends on which schools we’re talking about and which students we’re talking about. There are some students where it is in their best interest to not submit a standardized test score. But there are lots of variables around how you decide who those students are. So it’s a little bit of a disservice that this language is floating around out there about test-optional, because, for most of our students, it’s still in their best interest to submit test scores.

I believe that college counseling would agree with me on this, that most of our students benefit by submitting test scores. – Tom Garrison

Now, one of the things, as I understand it, is that scholarship money is tightly interwoven with performance on standardized tests. It’s not a hundred percent the case, but it’s still largely the case. If you can produce a good SAT or ACT score, it can benefit you when it comes to getting scholarships. You would take yourself out of the running for those by not submitting those tests. So by and large our guys still benefit by submitting test scores. What it does is it opens doors for students who might not be the best test takers. It gives them other options to show that they are still good students and that they still have a lot to offer at college. And if you happen to be one of those guys, then we need to sit down and talk with our college counselors and say, okay, what else are we gonna show these colleges? If you are a good test taker, it helps to show them both. 

Anthony Nguyen: How do you think Ray Dass has been this year?

Mr. Garrison: Yeah, it’s exciting. We’re starting to see real numbers to show that it works. We’re seeing gains in our PSAT and SAT scores. The trick to Ray Dass and any other thing, whether you go to a place to get test prep and pay somebody for test prep or whether you do the Ray Dass program, is whether or not the student will put in the time. What we’re finding is the students who are putting in the time are making significant improvements in their test scores because of the nature of software and things like that you know who’s putting the time in and who’s not. The big thing for us with Ray Dass is that it’s being offered to you guys at no cost. So you can go to a test prep company and pay a lot of money and do very similar things that you can do with Ray Dass and not have to pay that.

Anthony Nguyen: Since Jesuit’s work grant program has become optional for some students, how will the program function in the future?

Mr. Garrison: This is another one of those things where optional is a word that doesn’t quite paint the whole picture. What it really does is it opens up work grant to all students and gives people who are receiving financial aid an option. Let’s just make up an example where in the past someone receiving financial aid would work a hundred hours of work grant. They would earn money towards their financial aid. It could be the situation that they have a job outside of school that pays better than that, or that has hours that are more convenient for the family. In the past, they might have had to pass up that job, but now they could say, I’d rather do that. They can still receive financial aid without having to do the work grant hours on campus.

Now the other piece of it is somebody who is not receiving financial aid could now do their work grant hours and earn money towards his tuition. We have families that for one reason or another, may choose not to seek financial aid, but they may still need or want their son to contribute to the tuition and he can work here through Work Grant to do that. Optional yes, but not going away. If anything it’s opened up more. 

Logan Thompson: I think one of the most significant changes about this school year has been the change in covid protocols compared to the last two years. How do you think that’s impacted just the community?

Mr. Garrison: Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a lot more fun this year. You guys seem happier to me and the teachers seem happier to me.  Y’all are more relaxed and I think the teachers are more relaxed. I’m more relaxed. So that’s my quick answer.

Anthony Nguyen: How do you think the aspect of being physically fit, how does that fit into this year’s theme of being intellectually competent?

Mr. Garrison: That’s a great question. I read somewhere that if you want to change your mind, you need to change your body. They were talking about mental health in that regard. It was a podcast or something I was listening to, and, you know, if you are sad or depressed, or anxious, a good way to feel better quickly is to exercise. If you want to change your mind, you need to change your body. So they’re saying get moving, get active, get physical. I think it works the same way for education. If we are healthier and we are in shape, everything works better. You get better blood flow, you get better oxygenation, and everything that needs to be fueled is getting fueled.

Your brain is using more energy than any other muscle in your body so you’ve got to be fueling it with good food, good sleep, and good exercise. I think they go hand in glove. Very important.     -Tom Garrison

Austin Keith: What are your thoughts on the performance of Thomas Cuisine so far? 

Mr. Garrison: Yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. I was nervous about them plating the food. At first. I didn’t know if that was gonna work, but it seems to be working. They’ve gotten very quick at lunch to get the food to you guys. It doesn’t look like you have to wait in line too long. I think the food tastes good. I’ve been very happy with them.

Austin Keith: With the new UIL realignment, how do you think that will affect Jesuit athletics this year?

Mr. Garrison: I like that we are playing the Richardson schools and the Irving schools because we’re not too far. Richardson, especially, I mean, I’m sure you guys have friends in Lake Highlands, you have friends in the Pearce neighborhood, you have friends in Richardson. The interesting one to me is now we’re aligned with Highland Park. We’ve played them in the playoffs a little bit at, at a time when they were 6A about five or six years ago, and then they went back down to 5A. But now we’re in with Highland Park again. There’s just an interesting cross-town rivalry that has realized here. I will say publicly, I’m asking for all the student support on this. We need you guys to be classy. I need you guys to take the high road and continue to be men for others. Cheer for your team, not against their team, things like that. You all know what to do. We just need to do it.

Special thanks to Peyton Bristow ’25 for helping create interview questions.

The Roundup staff hopes that our interview answered important questions the student body possessed. Please tune into The Roundup for more news pertaining to student life.