Rainier bids farewell to its principal after five years under his leadership

By Keith Dinh

Editor-in-Chief

For the last eight years of Rainier’s history, Executive Director Jesse Roe has been there every step of the way. Starting his career in 2006, Mr. Roe taught in NYC for five years before moving to California to teach at Summit Tahoma. During this time, Tahoma and Rainier shared a campus, which is where Mr. Roe taught as a mathematics teacher for two years. After those two years, Mr. Roe joined the Summit Academics team and was then offered the position of Executive Director of Rainier in his second year on the Summit Academics team. As one of Rainier’s longest-serving staff members, Mr. Roe has made many relationships with other faculty members, and his personality, in how he is always calm in all situations, is what many in the community remember him most for.

On Friday, April 19, Rainier Executive Director Jesse Roe gave a public announcement that he will be stepping down from his role as principal come the next school year.

In the following weeks, members of the Rainier community have expressed their mixed emotions on Mr. Roe’s departure. Both students and staff members continued about their days without much change, yet many of them still do not know what to make of Mr. Roe’s decision to leave Rainier. Through many of their words, the impact that Mr. Roe has had on Rainier’s community is very clear, and his absence in the next year will be a foreign feeling to members of the community.

Edward Lin, the Chemistry teacher at Rainier, expressed his gratitude toward Mr. Roe when he said, “Oh, so many things … I started literally the same year he became the director, so this is both of our fifth year as teacher and director, so … yeah … I just want to thank him for the last five years of not just obviously hiring me, but also to, kind of, the guidance and mentorship that he’s provided over the years.”

Correction: June 14, 2019

An earlier version of this article misstated that Mr. Roe has served Rainier’s community for the past seven years, where he has actually been a part of the Summit community for eight years. Mr. Roe also started his career as a teacher in NYC for two years (not with Summit Public Schools) and moved to California join the Summit team at Tahoma. Mr. Roe then taught mathematics for two years, took part in the Summit Academics team for another two years, and was then offered the position of Executive Director of Rainier.

See below for more on the Rainier’s community’s perspective on Mr. Roe’s tenure: