Calumet High School - Chieftain Yearbook (Gary, IN)

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I think it is good they move around alot. I think it hurts the school in many areas, by that I mean it is very difficult to hold a dance anymore because the kids get moblie and they may be hav- ing some kind of operation when they hop in their car and go to Valpo or they hop in their car and go to Ham- mond or alot of them go down to IU, spend the week- end at IU, with brothers or sisters or someone. I think it is great. I think the kids are much more sharper to- day than they were in 1959. They want to do more things. They are, I think, much more patient today than they were. I think they want things done now. If I may be negetive for a moment, I think that one of the things, one of the problems we have with the teenagers today, and I haven ' t said this to too many people, but it seems that when a young man or young lady falls into trouble here at school, by that I mean, caught ditching, caught stealing a fire ex- tinguisher or something it seems as though that indi- vidual doesn’t want to pay the price or suffer the con- sequences. He or she will say Oh ' give me a break. Jimmy Smith did the same thing and nothing happened to him. Barbara Smith did something similar to that and nothing happened to her. Give me a break . I think that the kid deserves that if it is something minor, but in most cases they don ' t want to do that, they don ' t want to pay the price or suffer the consequences. They want to get off. I’m not sure what the reason for it is. I do know that we ' re not unique in that.

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YB: Mr. Dakich, this is your first year as principal actually you ' ve only been here a couple of months, what is your reaction so far to the position itself? Dakich: I will preface by saying that I was assistant principal for three years un- der, what I consider, one of the most outstanding princi- pals in the area, Mr. Julius. I learned a lot by findin g out really what some of the problems are that we have here. In regards to the prin- cipalship. I ' ve been here I think three weeks today, yeah, thats it, three weeks today, I find the job very, very complex (Phone rings) excuse me. (Mr. Dakich gives his ok to a student to sell Halloween suckers) I have to say in the last three weeks I ' ve enjoyed it im- mensely. There are some problems that a Principal has that I wasn ' t aware of and maybe that ' s what’ s the challenge. I think in this day and age, which we call the modern age, I think the prin- cipal has to be aware of the problems that the kids are having today. I think I ' m adjusting to that, I have ad- justed to that this past three or four weeks. YB: Going back, what posi- tion did you start as in your public school career. Dakich: I started here in Lake Ridge Schools when it was called the Metropolitan School District back in Sep- tember of ' 59, which means I ' m starting my fifteenth year. I started out as a Jr. High math teacher when this building was the Jr. High. I taught seventh and eighth grade math; Mr. Borlick and I came at the same time. From there I moved to the high school which is now Ridge Jr. High. I became director of distributive ed- ucation where I initiated our first vocational co-op pro- gram. To be specific, the D. E. program which led to all similar programs such as health occupations, office education and industrial oc- cupations. That was 1963 and I held that position for three years and remained at the high school as a business teacher and as freshman basketball coach. Then in 1969, when we went to two junior highs, Mr. Julius be- came principal of Ridge Junior High and I went over with him as Dean of Students. I stayed there for one year as Dean then Mr. Julius came here to the high school in 1970 and I came over as assistant principal and re- mained his assistant princi- pal ' til October 3rd of this year, at which time he got a promotion to Director of Vocational Education and I was promoted to the princi- palship. YB: Undoubtedly, the times have changed since you started as Math teacher lead- ing up to principal and the kids have changed along with the times and what noted differences do you see from the people of 1959 to 1973? Dakich: Without any question, the high school kids of today are more intellegent, if I may use the word intellegent, in all areas. They watch more television, see more movies, do more things, and probably one of the biggest things they ' ve got going for them has to do with intelle- gence. They are more mo- bile today than they were in the past. Just check our parking lots.

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Summer school, what a drag. Or maybe it really wasn ' t all that bad. To find out, Chieftain reporter Lennie Stitt was sent out to get the opinions of those who attended. By far, the biggest gripe the students had was the time of the classes. Sophomore Joy Clod- feldter commented, I liked it, but I had to get up at six to get there on time. The most common class taken was Driver Education, which junior Debbie Simko said, was better than learn- ing from your parents.