By J1 Reporter Olivia Turkel
When most people think of the Dean of Students they think of the person who gives them points, yells at them for coffee drinks in the halls, or for wearing the wrong color socks. However, the Dean of Students, Mrs. Kris Hennings, does much more than the average eye can see.
Hennings’ morning begins at 7 a.m. with front office work. That includes monitoring people who come into the building and depositing lunch money. She then moves on to logging discipline points from the previous day, sending out 6-point letters, and assigning Saturday school for those students with 10 points.
Towards the middle of the day Hennings does lunch duty and passes out the cleaning rags to sanitize the table and monitors the lunchroom activities. Once her set duties are done, Hennings does whatever else needs to be acomplished; meeting with students about upcoming events is one of the more common tasks.
Hennings claims that her most time consuming activity is monitoring work study before and after school. She said, “[I am] constantly checking if kids are in the room or doing things they are supposed to be doing and following up with them.” This task also involves a lot of checking emails from teachers about making sure everything was done correctly.
Her newest task, furthermore, is sending out five day letters. These letters are sent out to students who have missed five days in one class with no valid excuse. Hennings said these letters include something like, “Hey! You have missed five days in one class […] why is this?”
Along with all of Hennings’ daily responsibilities, her favorite part of her day is being able to get into the classroom to get a better sense of how that operates. The best part of her day, however, is going down to the Performing Arts Center (PAC). Hennings said, “I love going down to the PAC and just watching the kids. They were practicing duet acting the other day, so that was fun to see them.”
Hennings also expressed how different it is working at an all-girls school. Coming from her previous job as an assistant principal for five years at a coed school in Hastings, Nebr., she wasn’t expecting the level of maturity here. Hennings said, “The level of self-control. That is the whole difference between private and public schools.” It made her realize that she was going to have to discipline girls for a lot of different things than she’s done before.
Although her job entails a lot of discipline, she also strives to better the lives of students everywhere. One of Henning’s main focuses is increasing diversity in high schools. Here at Marian, she works extensively with the IDEAS club. She also heavily focuses on the current vaping issues in high schools.
The Dean of Students does a lot more than the average student would realize. Hennings’ job is more than catching uniform violations or managing points. She strives to make the school run smoothly and make sure jobs get done.
