Shaler Area High School's assistant principal encourages students to pursue their passions

Editor’s note: The following story was submitted for the Shaler Area Student Section, a collaboration between TribLive and The Oracle, the student newspaper of Shaler Area High School.

Shaler Area High School has seen many new things since the start of the school year.

One of the most notable changes is new assistant principal Ryan Duane, who stepped up to the position after formerly working as a chemistry teacher in Virginia.

“Everybody here has been extremely helpful, nice and patient. All the things that you could hope for as somebody coming into a new school, it’s been that way here,” he said.

Working in a school was not what he originally wanted to do, having attended the University of Pittsburgh for biology.

“My game plan was to do my undergrad in biology and then go to medical school,” Duane said.

After graduating from Pitt, he started working in an orthopedic office before looking for medical schools that intrigued him.

“I decided, I’m going to pick the most fun one possible. I’m going to pick the one that’s in Texas. So I moved to San Antonio for medical school,” he said.

Duane quickly realized the medical field did not excite him. After seeing the other students in his program, he understood it was not his true passion.

“I regrouped and I thought, ‘OK, so that’s not my cup of tea, but what really gets me excited?’ The same way that I saw those people getting excited. The kind of memories that I kept thinking of were any times where I was working with kids, particularly high school kids,” he said.

The first step to Duane’s new plan was to go back to school for education. He returned to Pitt, got a master’s degree in secondary science education and moved to Virginia to start his career as a teacher.

During his six years of teaching, Duane was looking for more leadership opportunities.

“I was our assistant athletic director for a year, and I was our dean of students for a half a year. I enjoyed both of those experiences. I thought that this does feel right,” he said.

While working in Virginia, Duane married a teacher who also grew up outside of Pittsburgh. Duane and his wife always had the goal to move back to Pittsburgh.

“We got married a little over a year ago and decided now is the time if we’re going to kind of settle down and want to start a family and be back closer to our family, it’s time to move back home. So this summer, we just took the big leap,” he said.

Duane knew it was the perfect opportunity to get a job in a high school leadership position. After interviewing at many schools in the area, he knew Shaler Area was the right fit for him.

“In all of the meetings with Shaler, there was something different about it. I could definitely tell right away at the beginning of the interview process,” he said.

Duane’s experience has given him some perspective that he wants to share with the students of his new school.

“If you are really passionate about something, do that and do it to the best of your ability. The security and the money and everything that comes with that will naturally follow, if it’s really something you’re passionate about. So figure out what that passion is and follow it, and then live it and breathe it every single day,” he said.