Dester brings decades of experience, a fresh set of eyes to job as principal

Dan Dester is bringing a fresh set of eyes as the new principal of Bishop Carroll Catholic High School in Wichita.

“I’m sure that Joe Godina, who followed me at Trinity, is going to walk in there and say ‘Why don’t they have this? They should have this.’ I think a fresh set of eyes does that,” he said. “I think with Keaton McCracken being new, there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for new ideas.”

McCracken is the assistant principal of Academics at BCCHS.

Succeeded Vanessa Harshberger

Dester, who was principal at Trinity for four years, succeeds Vanessa Harshberger who was principal at the west Wichita high school for 17 years. Dester began teaching at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School in Wichita before accepting a job at Magdalen Catholic School. He then served as principal of St. Jude Catholic School for five years and Blessed Sacrament Catholic School for nine years.

The students at Trinity were great and the families were excellent, Dester said, but when the BCCHS job opened up he felt pulled in that direction.

An answered prayer

“So I prayed about it. I talked to my wife about it. There are only four high schools (in the diocese) and two in Wichita so they’re not going to open up very often. When it did, I felt I had to consider it. It just kept feeling right so I applied and it went from there.”

Dester said he’s been working with a lot of students and teachers and that they have been focusing on building community and building on the school’s Catholic identity. “It’s already great here – I don’t want to come off saying I’m going to come in and fix this place – but the area I see where we can really grow is in community and our Catholic identity.”

One challenge he has is Bishop Carroll’s enrollment is five times that of Trinity.

“It’s much larger, but there are a lot more pieces to that: there are two assistant principals, four counselors, and a president,” he said. “So, my job kind of gets smaller but I’m doing more of a smaller job – if that makes sense. With the community system that we have in place, it makes schools within a school – eight little schools to get to know.”

More administrative help has changed the way he will work as a principal, he said. “I’m used to being the person that does a lot of things that here I’m not going be able to do, so I have to delegate and really let loose of that delegation.”

Building on traditions

Dester said he hopes to build on the high school’s traditions, education, and formation. “I’d like to see the enrollment go up. I’d like to see our scores go up. I’d like to see more vocations come out of here and there’s already a great tradition of vocations coming out of here.”