Mr. D, Principal of Columbine HS, is retiring...
Frank DeAngelis has worked at Columbine High School for thirty-five years, and he's been principal for the last seventeen. He was in his office when the shooting started. He was there for the aftermath, the years-long recovery that came at a great personal cost. Now, fifteen years after the tragedy that birthed a terrible new chapter in American history, he's finally decided to call it quits. This is his story.
By K. Annabelle Smith on April 18, 2014
Frank DeAngelis didn’t always want to be a teacher, and heaven knows he didn’t expect the responsibilities the job would lay upon him. When he graduated from high school in northern Colorado, he thought he would become an accountant. When he realized there wasn’t a future in keeping the books, he left college for a semester and worked at a grocery store. During the time spent amid fluorescent lights and the bleeping of the cash register, he considered the people who had influenced his life: his junior high baseball coach and his social studies teacher, for example.
“I thought about the impact they had on their students—on me,” he says. “That’s when I decided to go back to school to pursue my degree in education.”
He was hired at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in October 1979, as a social studies teacher. He was twenty-four, and he took to the job immediately. He loved teaching; after school, he coached baseball and football. He spent a year or so at another middle school, but, he returned to Columbine as soon as something opened up. Over time, he climbed the ladder. From ’92 to ’94 he piloted a dean of students program. He rose to assistant principal. Then, in 1996, with the support of his colleagues, Mr. D, as the kids came to call him, became principal.
And for a little while, all was well.
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