After spending 31 years as a Yamhill County educator, Ewing Young Elementary School principal Kevin Purcell will retire this June.
He’s had numerous jobs around the district and spent eight years in the Dayton School District.

“I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to do any one thing for more than seven or eight years,” he said to explain his moves from the classroom to the Learning Resource Center to the district office and back to a school building. “I’ve been really fortunate to be in just the two districts,” he said, yet he has been able to try his hand at different posts. He also holds a superintendent license but thinks that now isn’t a good time to seek that position because there are too many financial challenges.

Purcell started his career as a life skills teacher at Dundee Elementary School in 1980. In 1989, he earned his administrator’s degree from Portland State University and was hired as assistant principal, splitting his time between Mabel Rush and Edwards elementary schools. After eight years in Dayton as principal of the grade school, he returned to Newberg as director of special programs.

While he’s really proud of creating the transition classroom for special needs students, school buildings beckoned him. Working full-time in the district office, he felt separated from the kids. He likes working with students and became an administrator so he could influence more children. “It can be a hard job, but it can also be a very rewarding job when you see that light bulb go on,” he said.

By his fifth year as principal of Ewing Young, some things have changed. “I really look for a team player,” he said of hiring teachers: someone who’s going to be a lifelong learner and who gets along well with others. A big proponent of technology, the school has computer carts — they don’t have enough space for a dedicated computer labs — and smart boards. “It’s a great asset, it’s a great tool,” Purcell said. Technology is used to engage more kids and he muses that with time and better voice recognition software keyboards may become obsolete. Yet he also longs for things gone by.
“It just seems that we had a lot of things that have been cut,” he said. The library is only part time. Electives teachers are shared between schools. Class sizes have increased. As a result, “I think the kids then get less individual attention than they seem to need,” he said.
As enrollment in the district grows, he sees Ewing Young as strategically placed to absorb some of that growth; the school has at least one more classroom that could be used, the equivalent of about 20 students. With about 180 students currently enrolled, Purcell said he thinks that Ewing Young is a great proposition for parents, as he says that research clearly points to smaller schools as better learning places.

Purcell worked with special needs students in high school but didn’t consider teaching as a major until he’d already tried nursing, forestry and psychology. His wife teaches first grade at Joan Austin and has had a 30-year career in education as well. Purcell said that he might teach a few college courses or supervise student teachers to ease into his retirement.

He had one thing to say to students considering entering the education field: “It’s a wonderful profession.”