At six feet, five inches, Timberland High School principal Tim Evans stands tall, but that’s not the reason students, teachers, and staff look up to him. His stature is no match for the size of his heart for a school he calls home.  Evans is our Cool School Principal of the Week.

Walking the halls of Timberland High School is a familiar path for Principal Tim Evans. His educational career journey brought him to the school deep in the majestic woods of St. Stephen twenty-three years ago.  

“This is a great school. I’m honored to be principal here at Timberland. It’s great to come home. I went from band director, I was then administrative assistant at Cane Bay Middle School, assistant principal at Berkley Middle, and at that point, that’s when I was named here as principal of Timberland,” he said.

Evans is in his third year as principal and served as the band director for eleven years.

“We’re a rural school. One of the things I can say about both being here as a teacher and a principal, one of the things I love about it is we have a family feel to our school, a very tight-knit community, made up of different communities, very supportive, especially with our athletics,” said Evans.

Timberland has 640 students in 9th through 12th grades.  

Evans describes his leadership style as inclusive. He says, “I’m very inclusive. I want everyone to feel like they have ownership, so I try to be very transparent in terms of communicating with our teachers, my admin team, and getting input and feedback that’s very important to me because I want them to feel like they have ownership and stake in the decisions that are made. We’re really trying to get more student involvement in terms of what they want, and what they are expecting, so very inclusive.  

“He’s open to suggestions and has leadership abilities as far as I’m concerned. He knows how to direct what he’s expecting out of each person, whether it’s the faculty member or whether it’s a student. Cool it is,” said Visual arts instructor Ethan Rollerson.

Senior and Miss. Timberland Saniyah Wynn says, “I like Mr. Evans. He’s a real cool dude. Since I’ve been here, Mr. Evans has brought a lot to Timberland, and it’s been really fun these past years. I love it! It’s real nice now. He’s a cool principal because not only does he enforce the rules, but we have fun here. We have real fun.”

Principal Evans says he’s proud of the school’s early college program and they have plans to expand the school’s Leader in Me module school-wide next year.  

Evans says he’s honored to serve as a role model for students. He says, “Throughout my career, I felt I had to be that role model for students because I do understand a lot of our kids don’t see that positive male role model in their lives, so that’s really important to me in terms of being involved in mentoring programs through my fraternity and everything else.”  

Students say he’s someone they look up to in more ways than one.  Senior Curtis Williams says, “I see him more in the hallways.  He’s always interacting with the students. Overall, he’s just a really good principal.  He’s a pretty tall guy.  With him being so tall, people get to look up to him physically and emotionally, as well.  You get to see where he’s been from.  He’s from Timberland.  He was the band director at one point in time, and now looking at where he’s at now. He’s the principal.”

Mr. Evans says he’s proud of the gains the school has made to improve academics and the culture.  “One of the things that I’m most proud of with our students is whenever I have someone visit,  they always say how respectful our students are. I’m really appreciative of it. It’s always been that way actually, even when I was here as a teacher.  Come and visit, or come to some of our sporting events and see what a great place it is here in the majestic forest.”

If you would like to nominate a Cool School, educator, or principal, send an email to Octavia Mitchell at omitchell@wcbd.com.