It’s still dark out when Principal Bryant Bednarek enters the building at around 6:45-7:05 a.m. to start the day with a packed schedule that includes meetings, announcements, monitoring students, teachers, and so much more.

“The first thing I do is sit down and look at my calendar for the day, what appointments I have coming up and schedule when I have time to take care of things like calling people back, or checking my email,” Bednarek said. 

Bednarek receives around 100 emails a day, so it is important for him to check his emails and catch up with everything from the night before. 

“At about 7:40 is when I start getting organized for announcements, and I read the announcement document over to make sure everything is up to date and correct,” Bednarek said. 

After the announcements, Bednarek checks in with the assistant principal Ben Schmidt to check up on him and make sure everything is going smoothly. Since it is Schmidt’s first year as an assistant principal, Bednarek finds it important to check in and discuss different topics that have surfaced. As assistant principal, Schmidt has a lot of responsibilities that are very important for the school. 

“Just like with students, teachers sometimes are sick, so part of my responsibilities is to check and see which teachers will be absent during the day. Then I have to go through a process of finding substitutes either internally or outside of school,” Schmidt said. 

Another daily responsibility that Schmidt has is discipline. He makes sure that kids are following the rules and taking care of those that are misbehaving and also making sure kids are safe. Mental health has been a rising problem, and Bednarek and Schmidt work hard to try and resolve this problem. 

“I think we are seeing students with a lot of mental health issues and that’s created a lot of challenges because we are more than just a school that provides ABC’s and 123’s to kids. We’ve expanded how we are supporting students with their mental health. We’re working closer with the county to help those students who have maybe got in trouble or need that extra support from the county to be successful,” Bednarek said. 

Bednarek says that Berlin High School is more than just a school, but also a support system for students and families. There are many ways that this school supports families, for example food banks, clothing donations and different resources for community families. For Bednarek and Schmidt, students are the drive and motivation to come to work. 

“If I could get rid of all the paperwork and just work with students all day I would be extremely happy,” Schmidt said.