While approaching his 27th year with the Santa Rosa County School District, Tim Short will soon serve his first full year as principal for Milton High School. However, Short is comfortable with both serving as an administrative role and with the familiarity of Milton High School itself.
Short, a long time resident in the Pea Ridge area, worked at MHS for 15 years. He also served as an assistant principal for Navarre High School for six years before accepting his principalship at MHS.
“I worked (at MHS) from 1994 to 2009 as a teacher, coach and a dean (of students) the last couple of years,” Short said. “I love this place. To be able to comeback especially in this role has been incredible.”
Short took over for Michael Thorpe on April 1 after Thorpe accepted the position as the director of the Professional Development Center. Since April, Short has been busy filling teaching positions and one administrative position. In addition to several educators opting to retire at the end of this year, Short is also in the process of hiring a new assistant principal. Laura Austin recently accepted the principal position with the school district’s blended academy, formerly known as the virtual academy.
Short plans to continue on the same path previously set by the Thorpe.
“I obviously can’t come in and make changes, because there is so many good things happening,” Short said. “I want to grow what is already here.”
Next school year, MHS will unveil their manufacturing academy. Short said students will also have opportunities to gain additional certifications with information technology. He’s working with Thorpe on initiating a virtual-based curriculum in which the school’s Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, educators and students can interact with career professionals from around the world.
“Say our energy academy is doing a project on wind turbines, then they could get hooked up with a professional,” he said. “That expert will be to talk face to face virtually with those students about questions, it’s pretty neat stuff.”
The school’s seen a lot of student interest in the culinary and aviation curriculums as well, he said. MHS also continues to partner with University of West Florida in their archaeology program.
“We have an archaeology class on campus actively involved on dig sites on the Blackwater River,” Short said. “We are the only school in the state that actually has an active dig site.”
Both college students and an instructor from the UWF archaeology are continuing to work together for this curriculum. Short said the students will go work on the dig site, located on property owned by a school employee, a few times a week while learning the basic procedures and principals of archaeology in the classroom.
“We want to be nurturing, but we also want to be rigorous in what we do in the classroom and prepare them for whatever their needs are in the real world,” Short said. “We know the quality of service Milton High School offers to students. The big goal is to get these students to where they can graduate.”
Next school year, MHS will be celebrating its centennial anniversary with special events currently in planning for school alumni. Short said attendees can expect to see the throw back school colors, black and orange, on the MHS uniforms at next year’s sporting events. Some of which might recognize the school colors along with the Swamp Angels, the school’s original mascot instead of the school’s current mascot, the panthers.
Short anticipates the school will proudly promote the school’s past by wearing black and orange throughout next school year and return to sporting black and gold along with the panther mascot the following year.
Short knows the tradition of what MHS has meant to the community and what the community expects from him and the rest of the staff at Milton High School.
“There are generation after generation of families that have been through here,” Short said. “We take pride in that. Ultimately, we want to put good people out there in the real world in the workforce to be good citizens and good stewards.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Short prepares for first full year as MHS principal