New Lakeside Principal Reignites Viking Pride

By Laura Haas

The first time that Jason Clyne stepped foot in Lakeside High School, he was greeted by a parent who offered him advice.  Clyne was a new Assistant Principal, from another community in Atlanta and as the parent shook his hand, he encouraged Clyne. 

“He told me to buy into the community, that the community would support me if  I supported it,” Clyne said.  

After six years at Lakeside, Clyne became the new principal when Joe Reed retired at the end of the school year in May. 

Though he grew up in the home of an Assistant Principal, Jason Clyne never saw  himself working in secondary education.  As a college student at Georgia State University, he swore he would never work in a public school, majoring instead in creative writing and philosophy.  After graduation he spent a few years working in graphic design but eventually grew tired of the profession.  

When his educator father suggested that he try his hand at teaching, Clyne agreed and began working as a literature teacher at Cedar Grove High School. Within a few days, the teacher that Clyne had been assigned to work resigned and Clyne replaced him. 

“I tried to get out several times but they kept dragging me back in,” Clyne said, joking about the career that he never meant to chase. 

In 2007, he moved to Lakeside as an Assistant Principal, in charge of attendance until last year when he became the Assistant Principal of Instruction, taking over the creation of the master schedule for the school year, a duty he is working on this summer as well. 

“I haven’t hired the person that’s going to replace me yet,” Clyne said.  “So I have to depend on the kindness of strangers to come in and help me.”  

During the summer, the principal, the bookkeeper and the custodial staff are the only employees in the building and Clyne, who has taken on two roles for the time being, is more than a little swamped. Parents have volunteered to help out but for confidential paperwork, the new principal is on his own.  

Some nights he works in his office until well after dark.  As students drive by his office door, many will slow down, honk and wave at him from the street. 

“There are a lot of fans out there that I didn’t know I had and that makes it a lot easier to get through my day,” Clyne said.  

As he describes his vision for the future of Lakeside High, Clyne calls former Principal Reed the father and himself the philosopher who can see ahead to the future for the school, which will celebrate it’s 50th year in 2014. 

“We’re a new face in an old building in an established neighborhood with a new direction,” Clyne said. 

Though he wouldn’t go into detail about specific changes that his leadership will bring, he called for a return to the school pride of the past where students would gather at sports games, rooting on their school team.  Clyne believes that pride in the athletic teams will lead to pride in the overall school. 

"There has to be some sort of feeling that we are proud of our school,” Clyne said.  “I have to make a kid want to put on a Lakeside hoodie.”

For Clyne, it’s that sense of community and pride that connects students and the neighborhood with the school. 

"Lakeside is steeped in tradition,” Clyne said.  “It’s embedded in the community as an almost historical landmark for this neighborhood.”

According to Clyne, the future is a mix of tradition and technology as he seeks to reignite old school pride with modernization.  

“I want to be able to say, we honor that tradition but there are roads ahead of us that are wide open and we need to start moving down them,” Clyne said.