White 'graduates' with class of 2007
By Elizabeth D'Arcy and Lauren Schmidt

  After 34 years as an educator, Jon White is retiring at the end of the school year.
  As the assistant principal for student services, White has been responsible for overseeing the adviser system, social work department, the foreign exchange program, post-high school counseling, health services, and many of the 9th period clubs. White is also the sponsor of Sassafras, a club dedicated to promoting diversity. He is passionate about the Anti-Defamation League and the Names program.
  White’s dedication to the students has been unfailing throughout his years at New Trier. At the beginning of the year, White vowed to learn the first name of every senior and has ultimately been successful.
  He wanted to learn all the seniors’ names for many reasons. He is “graduating” with the class of 2007 and thought it would be something fun to do during his last year. The Names Program also played an important role in White’s decision.
  “A freshman boy was speaking at Names about how he wished that we didn’t create walls to prevent ourselves from getting to know everyone. He began to walk down the rows and introduce himself and try to learn everyone’s names and it got me thinking that he was onto something,” White said, “So I thought what better class to do this with than the seniors of 2007?”
  White commented on how great it will be to know every senior name as he graduates. White believes it is crucial for people to make connections and recognize each other rather than be a faceless group of 4,000 students.
  “I don’t know him well, but I am extremely impressed with how he has learned everyone’s names. I thought that he would for sure forget me, but he didn’t,” senior Sammi Gassel said. “He is really friendly and says hi to me every time I see him in the hall. We have such a big school and it is amazing that one teacher can know the names of everyone in one class.”
  In fact, White has learned the names of 41 advisories, a total of 1018 students.
  “I have no idea how he does it. I met him twice and he always remembers my name,” senior Ian Darbyshire said.
  “I had a lot of help,” White said. “If the whole senior class wouldn’t have helped me, I never could have done it.”
  White went to each adviser room to learn the students’ names. He studied the ID pictures, but eventually ended up more confused because “no one really looks like their ID picture,” he said. Eventually, seniors helped him out, introduced themselves, and he continued to introduce himself until he learned the names of every student.
  “He is a really cool guy,” senior Myles Young said.
  “Mr. White always brightens my day when I see him strutting through the halls,” senior Will Rossi said.
  White did not immediately begin his teaching career, after graduating from the University of California Irvine.
  White served in the Army for two years. When he returned home to California, he worked for his father’s insurance company.
  Unsatisfied, White decided to go back to school for his master’s degree at Northwestern University. At the close of the program at Northwestern, he was assigned to work at New Trier.
  After teaching various social studies courses (U.S. history, world history, and psychology) for six years, he was appointed to sophomore boys’ adviser chair and then was the Dean of Students for 15 years.
  “That was a great job,” White said. “I never thought of myself as one of those deans like in ‘Ferris Bueller’ or ‘The Breakfast Club.’ I loved helping kids grow up and I got to play many roles: detective, policeman, and counselor; it was a very exciting job.”
  In addition to holding teaching and administrative positions, White was a track coach for about five years and a baseball coach for 10 years, until around 2000. He described coaching as a great experience, where he got the chance to interact with students in a much more casual setting.
  White has enjoyed being the assistant principal for student servicesfor the past ten years, but said that he loved every job he has held at New Trier.
  “I never wanted to be in a job where I wasn’t in contact with students every day,” White said, referring to all of his administrative positions over the past three decades.
  Even with over 30 years of educational involvement at New Trier, White believes that students have remained, for the most part, the same.
  “On the whole, New Trier students have a great work ethic. They are eager to learn and show evidence of wanting to succeed,” White said.
  White also commented that the student-teacher interaction at New Trier is very different from other schools.
  “In many high schools there is a defined boundary between teachers and students. New Trier teachers are so available to their students,” White said. “Whenever I go into a department office, there are groups of students waiting to talk to teachers.”
  Outside of school, White enjoys a variety of things, including reading (his favorite book is “The Power of One”) and baseball. He loves Cubs’ game and made it clear that he loved the cubs rather than “that other team.”
  White has no immediate plans after he retires, “I have been working full time year round since I was 15, so I plan on doing nothing for a few months. But I will probably get another job.” White’s active involvement in the Names program and ADL (Anti-Defamation League) is a job interest that he might pursue.
  Although White is sad to leave, he is taking with him many fond memories.
  “In the bigger picture, watching students grow and how they develop over the course of four years is what I will remember the most about my time at New Trier. Students are very different people at the end of those four years.” White said.