New SHHS Principal Is All Ears
SHHS Principal Greg Hilden: “People need to be heard.”
“I still refer to myself as a counselor,” Greg Hilden says.
The new principal of Strath Haven High School has been a teacher, a basketball coach, and an assistant principal, as well as a school counselor. But the counseling feels central to his 20-plus years as an educator.
“As a leader, you need to understand people,” Hilden says. “People need to be heard.”
Hilden started his new job on July 1. Since then he’s been doing a lot of listening. He’s getting to know his staff and district families, even as he supervises student schedules and new registrations, as well as helps shape the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District’s reopening policy.
“If these were normal circumstances, I’d have a town hall,” he says. “I’d talk to the group, and then I’d make time to talk to people individually.” Instead he’s chatting with parents he runs into on the bridge between the high school and the middle school, and greeting teachers who pop into his office to say hello. He introduced himself to the faculty on Zoom. “It’s an interesting time for a transition,” he says.
Hilden replaces Kristopher Brown, who left SHHS last winter to become district equity officer of Abington Township. Assistant Principal Andrea LaPira served as interim principal after Brown’s departure.
One of ten children, Hilden put himself through college, where he majored in philosophy.
After that, attending school at night while holding down a job, he earned a master’s degree in counseling, a master’s equivalency in theology, and a doctorate in leadership. He has worked at Cardinal O’Hara, Unionville, and Garnet Valley high schools.
With two children of his own, Hilden shares the anxieties of district families. “How am I going to make sure my fourth grader, who struggles to sit in front of a computer, does that all day?” he wonders.
“It’s an uncertain time for people,” he adds. “Even your calmest, most level-headed person is on edge.”
Hilden is hopeful that WSSD’s plans for the fall will be successful, but he knows they’re not foolproof. “But I don’t think anything is,” he says. “My fear is doing something that would inadvertently put someone in harm’s way. But I’m just one cog in the wheel, and there are a lot of other moving parts.”
When he talks about his role as a counselor, and the kids he’s worked with, Hilden gets excited. “Our job is to help them realize what their potential is and how to maximize it,” he says. “Not to tell them what that should be.” He believes in celebrating kids, not just for traditional achievements, but for all kinds of successes, large and small. At Garnet Valley, he started a Twitter page to share such moments. He hopes to do the same at Strath Haven.
“I want to recognize them for the struggle,” he says.
