New to the Frederick staff this year is Mrs. Ashlee Swanson as our new Dean of Students.

 Many students wonder what the job of the dean of students really is because it really isn’t mentioned or commonly known. The dean of students does have many jobs and responsibilities. Mrs. Swanson says, “It is supporting students. One thing that I focus on is that I work to support the Ptech program and the students in that program. So I make sure they have schedules, do all the backend stuff, make sure they have the right teachers from aims. From the college and work on internships so it’s a lot of kind of in the background stuff that helps the program run smoothly. A lot of it is just the everyday needs that come up in the building like being available and being able to go down the hallway and support students and support teachers.”

Swanson is very outgoing as she said “ I love traveling, one of my favorite things is I love being outside and hiking.” Swanson mentioned many times that she really wants to focus and try her best at building relationships with the students and teachers.

Swanson shows a real passion for her job to make sure that she does it the right and best way that she could. She provides help when needed and provides a great person to connect with if you ever need anything.

Although Mrs. Swanson loves her job and is great at it it hasn’t always been something she’s wanted to do. “I started my career in counseling. I did crisis and trauma counseling and I loved it. I didn’t know until later that I wanted to be in education. So, once I got into education I was really interested in working with students who encountered barriers like transportation, getting to school, feeling connected to the school, things like that. I did a lot of work with student engagement and attendance and with that I realized that I loved being in a building and loved having a team of teachers and staff that I could work closer with and concentrate on one community.”

  As a new addition to the school, Swanson is excited about all the upcoming fun for this school year. “I am most excited for school events [like] Homecoming, games, all those fun things that we didn’t get to have last year. I’m really excited to have all of those. And I’m really excited to be a part of graduation, I think that’s always really fun.”

  As she said she loves all the involvement. So I asked her what kind of person she was in high school and she said, “ I was super involved. I was a cheerleader, I loved all things school spirit so I did student council, I ran track, and I just really liked to be involved in everything. I would say I was a super involved student.”

Mrs, Swanson has even set a couple of goals for this year.“So, my main goal is to know all of the teachers and I would like to know the names and most of the students on my caseload. That’s really important. I want to really focus on building good relationships this year.”

  Even though many students aren’t totally familiar with what the dean of students does, I think a lot more people should meet and get to know Mrs. Swanson she’s very sweet, fun, and just overall easy to talk to and will always be there if anyone needs help. I think there’s a lot that you could learn from Swanson such as how and building true relationships and connections is very important and is something that everyone needs to have in their life. Mrs. Swanson was a perfect addition to Frederick. I can only imagine the things she will do for our school and what she will accomplish