Auburn Council of PTAs

Outstanding Service Award 2007

Paul Douglas

The Auburn Council of PTAs is honored to present this award of outstanding service for 2006-2007 to Paul Douglas, Principal at Olympic Middle School.

Mr. Douglas is willing to do anything and everything in the best interest of his students and youth and families of the Auburn Community. He is a leader in his role of middle school principal in Auburn.  He received the South Puget Sound Middle School Principal of the Year award.  His many accomplishments at Olympic include higher reading levels, a decrease in discipline referrals and suspensions, higher writing proficiency and an increase in PTA volunteers and partnerships. Auburn’s Middle School Teacher of the Year has come from Olympic Middle School for the last four years! However, this honor is specifically for his accomplishments this year in recognition of his accomplishments that go beyond the scope of his “job description.”

In January of 2007, the Auburn community held a community form on gang awareness. Mr. Douglas lead the team as middle school principals from around Auburn joined with the Auburn Police Department, Auburn Youth Council, Auburn Parks and Recreation, Auburn Council of PTAs and other youth-oriented organizations within the schools and City of Auburn, to bring a community-wide form regarding safety, graffiti and gang awareness.  Many people who work and live in the Auburn community had the privilege to attend and participate in this vision.

There was no mistake of what occurred at that town meeting. Some thought we would be lucky to get 50 people. People sat in meetings and heard folks continue to ask the hard question, "How will we get people to come to a community form regarding gangs?" When people walked into the meeting that evening in January, there was standing room only. Some were shocked at the immense turnout, and enthusiasm to move forward to prevent further gang activity in our school and community. As we are all aware, we live the results of gangs in our school with the graffiti, the interesting writings and drawings on notebooks, papers etc. Kids come to school with gang colors, flagging, doing their signing and innuendoes. No one can convince Mr. Douglas, teachers or staff at Olympic Middle School that gangs do not exist in Auburn. The education provided for the parents and community members was outstanding.

Often we find many reasons to talk of why things won't work, people won't come or it won't make a difference in our students’ lives. At that meeting we had the opportunity to watch a paradigm shift. In our humanness we each need to know we matter, folks care and we make a difference. We believe Paul is making a difference in our school, in our children's lives and in our community.