Clayton Trehal has been a teacher for 16 years, a vice principal for four years and is now with iSucceed as the Principal for the past year. Learn more about Principal Trehal below!
About Principal Trehal
Principal Trehal is a true Idahoan–he loves the great outdoors. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, fishing, snowboarding, mountain biking and walking. Although there is one outdoor activity he doesn’t enjoy:
“I wish I liked running even a quarter as much as I like walking,” said Principal Trehal.
While he loves the great outdoors, Principal Trehal also enjoys watching a great movie.
Above all, Principal Trehal’s passion is helping and meeting diverse students.
“Working with our students gives me faith in humanity. You always hear the, ‘Oh, the younger generation is just the worst’ talk, but I doubt that few teachers or folks that actually work with the younger generation believe that,” said Principal Trehal. I’ve been in education for 16 years now, and every year I meet outstanding students of great character and integrity, who work hard to succeed and do what’s right. You realize that lots of young people are great quality people.”
For more tips on excelling in online school, head to this blog post.
Before coming to iSucceed, Principal Trehal was in a traditional, brick-and-mortar high school. Transitioning into the online realm comes with both its advantages and challenges, as Principal Trehal said.
“The advantages of being a principal of an online school are that we don’t really spend a lot of time dealing with discipline issues and I’m not constantly at a sporting event. So we get to spend more time on students.”
The challenge Principal Trehal faces is helping students stay on track in schoolwork. To help, there is something he always tells iSucceed students:
“I always ask students to tell me what would happen in brick and mortar school if they only went to school two days a week, and the predictable answer is that they would fail,” said Principal Trehal. “I tell them that the same thing is true with our school, but that it’s easier to miss school because we are not sitting on the students’ couches telling them to log in.”
Principal Trehal said being an administrator for an online school means he has to personally reach out to many students since he does not physically see them every day. Doing so has helped him get to personally know many iSucceed students.
“It’s been awesome working with online students because there are so many various reasons they are here and it’s amazing to see them juggle school, work, unique circumstances and to do well at all of these,” said Principal Trehal.
For the past 16 years, Principal Trehal has impacted many students’ lives by helping them achieve their goals. But if you ask him, it’s the students who are impacting his life. The most rewarding thing to Principal Trehal is seeing a student succeed.
“There is nothing cooler than reading a well-written essay that you know a student put a lot of work into, or seeing a marginal student turn themselves around, or, best of all to me, writing letters of recommendation for students’ college applications, and then hearing back from them a year or two later,” said Principal Trehal. “To play any role in helping a person move forward toward their goals and to know that you are at least a small part in helping them become the person they are meant to be is really the great reward of choosing teaching as a profession.”
When it comes to sharing advice, Principal Trehal wants to take a unique route using a picture:
“This is not a picture of a mini-Pac Man game. It’s a cardboard box for Valentine’s Day cards that my daughter and I put A LOT of work into, and we were proud of the finished result. And isn’t that true about everything in life? You get out what you put in, and giving something your all is always a victory.”
- Students, do you have an iSucceed faculty member you’d like to give a shoutout to? Share with us in the comments below!