This article was originally published in Kaleidoscope‘s Spring 2025 print edition. It is being published as a separate online article now for easy access.
The 2024-25 academic year was Mr. Holownia’s first year as principal of Ward Melville High School. To gain insight into his experiences, Kaleidoscope sat down with Mr. Holownia. He shared his thoughts on what surprised him, what he’s most proud of and what he hopes to accomplish in the years to come.
Kaleidoscope: What has been the most rewarding part of your first year at Ward Melville?
Mr. Holownia: Starting to build relationships and getting to know the fantastic students, the staff, the teachers and all the people that work here in the community has been a nice welcome home. It’s also rewarding to get reacclimated, to see where Ward Melville has come since I left as a student in ‘99 and to be a part of this journey moving forward.
What are some moments that stood out to you this year?
There have been a lot of firsts: the first spirit week, the first homecoming — a lot of all those different things. The receptions for all the state championship teams that came back and having the fire department spraying the hoses — those opportunities to celebrate students have all been big and truly wonderful moments. I love getting to see students doing what they love to do.
How would you describe the school culture here at Ward Melville?
I don’t want to just use a word like wonderful. It’s true, but that description is almost bland. We are a very high-performing school. I don’t just mean academically; we are high-performing in many different ways. Of course we are high-performing academically, but there’s a culture of pushing each other up to succeed. There’s a ton of athletic success and in all of our extracurriculars like Science Olympiad, DECA or the academic quiz bowl team. There’s excellence everywhere you look, so I think there’s definitely a culture of excellence. That comes from hard-working students, a supportive and involved community, parents and, of course, the teachers who are working with students every day.
What has been one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced this year?
Going back to the idea of how much I enjoy getting to know people and building those relationships, it’s such a big place. There are so many people here. One of the biggest challenges is getting to know as many people as I possibly can, even something like learning names. I’m only a year in and I’d love to know everybody here, but I’m just not there yet. I probably never will be. But it certainly has been a good challenge for me.
Have there been any decisions or situations that have helped you grow as a leader?
I think every day about the decisions and situations that you learn from. It’s this idea of being a lifelong learner. I’m always reflecting on what happened the day before, the week before, and how I handled the situation, whether it concerned an individual or a group. I’m always trying to learn from those instances. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily one thing. I think it’s the accumulation of all of that reflection and always looking to grow and learn from every situation. It’s certainly helped that I’ve been able to rely on other, more experienced administrators — picking their brains and learning from their experiences to help me grow as a leader.
After a full year, how do you see Ward Melville’s strengths and what areas are you focused on improving?
I think the strength of Ward Melville is the very active and involved community; you get a tremendous amount of support from it. Students strive for success in all different areas. It’s great to see, certainly, the culture of excellence I spoke about earlier. This community helps to bring people along to rise to that culture and to that expectation.
Another thing I’d love to see is students trying new things. I think we sometimes get intimidated by that culture of excellence and students tend to get very focused in one or two areas, and I would love to see students trying out more things and taking steps outside of their comfort zone. We have so many elective opportunities here and so many different departments. I would love to see students branching out and trying out new things while they’re here in high school. It’s a great time in your life where you might have some of that freedom and that ability, and it’s just as important to try something new and find out that you love it as it is to try something new and find out that it’s really not for you. Both experiences are valuable and Ward Melville is a great place to be able to explore those things.
Is there anything you’ve started this year that you hope to build on in the future?
One that comes to my mind right away is called the Green and Gold Awards, an initiative we started this year. It’s a new award this year given to students — it’s voted on by the entire staff, and it’s an opportunity for the staff to nominate deserving students. It’s a type of award that people don’t even know they are competing for. It’s about who embodies what it means to be a patriot: who has a positive impact on the school community every day, who has strong character and who just simply makes being at Ward Melville a better place with what they bring to the table every day. It’s not an award that’s always meant for the student with the highest GPA or the greatest athletic performance — it’s for students who are consistently upstanding, wonderful people and who have a positive impact on their peers and on the school as a whole. They’re recognized by the staff for that, and those students who are chosen have an opportunity to turn around and recognize the staff members that have had the biggest and most positive impact on them. It’s just a great way to honor the hard work of students who might not otherwise get that recognition.
What’s something you’ve learned from students this year?
I’ve been so impressed by students’ passion this year. Students have shown me, in so many different facets and so many areas, how passionate they are about the things that they are pursuing. Whether it’s their extracurriculars, clubs, classes, athletics or their music performance, they always bring energy and enthusiasm. Their passion helps me to stay motivated and keeps me energized to do this job. After all, students are why we are here, and to see how dedicated they are is a really wonderful thing. I look back at myself as a high school student, and I think I pale in comparison to the passion that students have shown me this year.
If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice before starting this job, what would it be?
I would tell myself to celebrate the little things as they come up. Sometimes we can lose focus on all the little victories that happen. We get focused on the big things, the big events, the big moments. Trying to shift that focus a little bit, to celebrate those little wins, those small moments that are actually big moments in the students’ and staff’s lives, is definitely something to improve on.
