Principal Justin Wieller joined the Lovejoy community this school year. As a leader and lifelong educator, Wieller begins his first school year here at Lovejoy. Please join The Red Ledger in welcoming him to the school!
“I always thought I would be a teacher,” Wieller said. “ I was in biomedical engineering when I first started in college but before that, I was always part of the Future Educators of America club. After my second year of biomedical engineering, I realized I wanted to pursue my purpose and I wanted to go back and help kids. I was a teacher for about seven years before I got my first assistant principal job.”
After making the shift from biomedical engineering to teaching, Wieller began his career as an educator. From preschool to high school, Wieller has a wide range of experiences in education.
“There’s the progression of you feeling like you really want to help kids and then you feel like you want to serve your purpose out on a larger scale,” Wieller said. “I wanted to help teachers and kids and I just want to help as many people as possible to cast that wide net. My first job was at a preschool as a preschool and kindergarten teacher and then in middle school science and then algebra one.”
Shifting from the role of student to teacher to principal is a dramatic shift in mentality and leadership. Wieller recalls his own thoughts on his principal growing up.
“I don’t think I thought about what my principal did when I was in high school,” Wieller said. “I remember seeing my principal out in the hallways and at sporting events but I think in my mind I thought that principals just yelled at kids all day, or like you were in trouble going to the principal’s office. That’s not my job, at all. I find myself doing a lot of things behind the scenes like policies and things coming up at board meetings and stuff like that.”
Wieller describes the small-town feel of Lovejoy is what drew him to the area. Previously working at Frisco, he was ready for a change of pace.
“My dream job is to be a principal or a leader at a small school district that is small with one high school and everyone knows each other and you feel connected to the community,” Wieller said. “I was at Frisco before this, and before that a small district similar to Lovejoy, which was my alma mater, and I was the principal there and it was really cool.”
As Lovejoy’s legacy of excellence, he strives to do everything in his power to continue that legacy.
“I want students to be well-rounded individuals,” Wieller said. “When I have conversations with kids I’m not really worried about GPA or class rank. I want you to do as well as you can, but it’s more about the experiences that you have while in high school: what clubs are you a part of and what activities are you involved in. I think those are the things that you will remember.”
As a parent of three kids, Wieller routinely puts his phone away after school to prioritize time with his kids to de-stress.
“I spend as much time as I can with my three kids because it helps put everything in perspective,” Wieller said. “Just removing that distraction of my cell phone because we are always connected nowadays whether that’s email, text, or calls, so for me to decompress I just have to get rid of my phone for about an hour and spend time with my kids.”
As a servant leader, Wiieller hopes to leave a legacy, making an impact on a more personal level.
“The people are what make this place great,” Wieller said. “I’m not going to ask anyone to do something I wouldn’t do myself. My goal for this first year is just to listen, learn, and really take everything in because I feel to serve a community, you need to know that community inside and out. In the years to come it’s just trying to make things better. I want the best possible experiences for students, so looking at things that maybe aren’t going so well and kind of revamping what that looks like as well as finding things that are going really well and looking at how we can make it better.”
