New Spoto principal leads charge to excellence
By Kevin Brady
In the fall of 480 B.C., Xerxes I, king of the Achaemenid Empire, commanding up to 300,000 men, told 1,200 Spartans and their allies at Thermopylae, Greece, to lay down their arms, believing the Spartans were defeated and demoralized before a spear was thrown.
“Come and take them,” replied King Leonidas I, leader of the Spartans.
There’s a wee bit of King Leonidas in Glennis Perez, the new principal at Riverview’s Spoto High School – the Spartans. Plagued by a C grade for the last four years, Perez knows Spoto faces challenges, but while others might have seen the overwhelming odds and walked away, Perez is doing the opposite.
“One of my goals is to make Spoto High School the top performing high school in Hillsborough County,” said Perez, who took the principal’s seat July 1. “We are going to prove to the world that the students at Spoto can achieve, and we are going to turn it around starting with the students, staff and the community taking pride in our school.”
Spoto is the culmination of Perez’s career so far. Before coming to Riverview she served as assistant principal for curriculum at Brandon High for four years following a four-year stint at Strawberry Crest High in Plant City where she helped open the school in 2009. Before that, she taught math and was a behavioral specialist at Tampa’s Memorial Middle School and Forest Hills Elementary.
A New Jersey native, Perez began her teaching career in Union City, N.J., as an ESOL teacher in 2000. She immersed herself in the program, learning lessons she is bringing to Spoto where ESOL students have underachieved in the past. “We are retargeting our strategies and focusing on that particular subset of students,” Perez said.
A relatively small school by county standards – Riverview has 2,579 students while Lennard has 2,393 students – 75 percent of Spoto’s 1,657 students are “economically disadvantaged,” according to county records.
“Three of the things I remind my students of every day are to show their Spartan pride in the classroom, in the community and on social media,” Perez said. Recognizing the omnipresence of social media in student’s lives, the school emphasizes a positive approach, asking students what they love about the school every week on Twitter.
And parents have their part to play. “They can remain involved by understanding graduation requirements so they can navigate the educational system, checking on their students grade online via www.myspot.sdhc.k12.fl.us and having regular communication with their teachers.”
It is something she learned at home. “I was always very studious because that was the expectation my parents had for me. I had to maintain good grades and meet their expectations.”
A mom of two girls, she moved to Florida in 2003, wanting her daughters to be close to their grandparents. “I am a very family orientated type of girl,” she said.
Teachers can change lives, as Perez can attest. She holds back tears as she recalls her own fourth-grade teacher. “She took an interest in me and made learning fun. She connected with her kids and really engaged with them and was really able to know their passions and connected with those.”
Firing that passion for learning was one of the goals of last week’s Culture Krave, which celebrated the school’s diversity and renewed purpose. The event also highlighted Spoto’s Collegiate Academy, Academy of Film Production & Design and Academy of Fashion Technology. The school hopes the Collegiate Academy, which starts in August 2020, proves a draw for students who can earn an associate’s degree a week before graduating from high school in the program.
Under the county’s school choice program, which began this month, parents can select a high school for their children. With Spoto also promoting its Early Childhood Education, Computer Science, Veterinary Assisting, Nutrition and Wellness as well as the ROTC programs, Perez is hoping parents want their children to become Spartans.
As for the Spartans of 480 B.C., their people won the war, overcoming the odds.
Glennis Perez plans to do the same.
For more information, call 813-672-5405, or visit www.spot.mysdhc.org.
People on Perez
“We had such a negative reputation but she is so dynamic; she is changing everything. She hugs every student and welcomes them like they are her own children. My daughter has been there three years and in her first two years they had four pep rallies. They already have had four (under the new principal). You can tell the difference as soon as you walk on the campus. Ms. Perez is really getting the students filled with the spirit of being a Spartan. She is also involving the faculty and introducing new ideas.”
Rachel Roman, president of the school’s Parent Teacher Student Association whose daughter, Averyana Harris, is a junior at Spoto.
“She had a pep rally for ninth-grade parents that you wouldn’t believe. She told us these next four years are the most important to make sure your child is successful in their life. We want to make the school better and change the way people view Spoto. She is amazing. She wants to change the way people think about Spoto and make sure people are talking positively about in the school, in the community and pushing positivity in social media. Nobody is twerking on their social media pages anymore.”
Natasha Joiner, a volunteer in Spoto’s math department and vice-president of Spoto’s PTSA. Her son, Jyzaes Gerard, is a Spoto freshman in the ROTC program.
“She’s changing the school for the better and helping kids do the right thing. She is sowing new ideas that no one ever has before.”
Kianna Childs, Spoto Senior
“(The new principal) is phenomenal. She is creating programs that foster student success, making us more accountable for monitoring students, improving peer/faculty relationships; she has just a lot of systems in place for the betterment of the school. We actually have a vision. It’s a different atmosphere. The kids are excited about being in school now. There has been a lot of staff training just to understand the needs of the kids (better). Some of our kids have a lot of trauma and that impedes the learning process so we have had trauma training, so we can better assist the students, so we can get them on board.”
Stephanie Arnold, a Spoto counselor who has been with the school since it opened in Aug. 2006.