Guest post contributed by Kody Yoffee (’18)
Following the departure of ISLAND PACIFIC ACADEMY’s (IPA) Secondary Principal in 2016, Kip Cummings, IPA was in search for a new Secondary Principal. As the 2017-2018 school year kicked off, students noticed a new face in the secondary office. Steven Caley, the new Secondary Principal at IPA, was eager to introduce himself to the students. However, many still wonder who Steven Caley is and how he became the Secondary Principal at IPA.
Caley moved to the island of Oʻahu in 2005 and acquired a job at Maryknoll School as a history teacher and worked his way up to administration. Twelve years after being on staff at Maryknoll, Caley continued his search for a school that could benefit from a progressive education. So, when a job position for Secondary Principal at IPA opened, he quickly jumped at the opportunity.
“After sitting down with the IPA team for my interview, I realized that this is where I wanted to be. I was so excited and grateful when they offered me the position so I accepted and I’ve been super stoked to be here,” said Caley.
Before his transition into administration and education, Caley got a job in the United Nations (UN) and was part of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Caley was stationed in New Delhi, India where he was an advocate for women’s rights. While in the UN, Caley worked on projects that took him to the Himalayan Mountains and Hyderabad located in Southern India. As part of the UN, Caley’s job was to visit women in villages to assess their needs and figure out a way that the UN can help give equality to everyone, especially women.
“I particularly enjoyed the work I did advocating [for] the rights of women in India. Many cultures in our world have [patriarchal] societies where women are not treated as fairly as men. Unfortunately, India has some of this as well, so being able to try to create greater equality and create some laws to advocate for women was really powerful and a lot of fun for me,” said Caley.
Caley found that although he loved working at the UN, education was his true passion. He went back to Washington State to get a degree in education, which helped land him a job at Clover Park High School, located just outside the city of Tacoma. Although Caley was no longer working for the UN, he retained his mindset of bringing equality to everyone around him, and applied that to his work as an educator.
“Something I take away from my experience in India and bring back to my career in education is [the] desire to create greater equity. The phrase I like to use is: I want to give every student the equality of opportunity to get a great education,” said Caley.
Being new to IPA, Caley wants to bring his idea of better equity to IPA by first creating strong relationships between him and his students. To create a bond with the students at IPA, Caley stands outside the school doors every morning to greet students as they enter. Throughout the school day, Caley also greets students walking the halls and converses with them during lunch time.
“My approach was to be myself and be authentic with students and teachers. When I first came here I saw the students coming on campus and I said good morning to them all and I knew over time we would have authentic opportunities to get to know each other,” said Caley.
By being authentic, Caley feels he will succeed in learning about the variety of culture in students at IPA and forming strong bonds with them over the next few years. By doing so, the students at IPA will not only know Caley as the Secondary principal, but they will learn about the man behind the beard.
