Robin Moore plays every part at WF-R

If you want to reach the top, you're going to make a few enemies, right? Not according to anyone who knows Wake Forest-Rolesville Assistant Principal Dr. Robin Moore.

Teachers he works with and even students he's suspended sing the good doctor's praises. "I've never heard anybody say anything bad about Dr. Moore," says WF-R English instructor Diane Ray.

In less than three years, Moore, a slight man with a perpetually sunny disposition, has done more than make friends, he's been nominated for the Wake County Assistant Principal of the Year award.

Moore was raised in Moore County (no relation, he says) and graduated from Union Pines High School in Cameron, about 20 miles south of Sanford. He didn't go far from home, getting his bachelor's degree from N.C. State and spending 23 years in the Department of Corrections, first as a counselor and then as a school principal at the N.C. Correctional Institute for Women.

But after finishing his master's, principal's certificate and Ph.D. (all from N.C. State), Moore felt it was time to try the public schools. He liked WF-R, he says, because it was a community school. He now even lives in Wake Forest.

Right away, it was obvious Moore wasn't your ordinary administrator. He got involved in all sorts of activities, showing every student he cared about what they cared about.

When the drama department needs a guest actor for one of their shows or the band wants a chaperone who'll give up part of his spring break, it's Moore who volunteers. He not only slaps on a little grease paint, rides Space Mountain and shows up for the town's Christmas parade, he encourages every student -- athlete, intellectual and those at risk.

Moore calls it participatory leadership. Ray calls it wonderful. "He even takes negative situations and turns (them) into a positive. He lets kids know he cares about them and their future," says the instructor.

Part of that caring has been the school's Ninth Grade Academy. Principal André Smith had wanted to start an academy for years, to help freshmen get better acclimated to the academic and social demands of high school.

It was Moore who took the idea and made it reality. "If it were not for him," says Ray, "we probably wouldn't have the Ninth Grade Academy."

Beginning in the spring of 2001, Moore and several WF-R teachers began meeting and planning. Moore and the freshman English and social studies teachers moved to a central location, giving the students their own section of the school. A lounge, which serves as a gathering place for freshmen, was added and has been furnished with castoff upholstery.

But the changes weren't just cosmetic. Moore meets with academy instructors several times a month to discuss students who may be struggling and how to help get them back on track. The idea is to intervene early and avoid failure later on.

In less than a year and a half, the academy is reaping big rewards. Ninety-five percent of its students were promoted last year and more than two-thirds of the ninth-graders were involved in extracurricular activities. Get kids involved in school activities and they're more likely to care about school and their grades, says Moore.

And the freshmen's success on End-of-Course testing catapulted WF-R to School of Distinction honors in the state accountability program.

Even when kids don't succeed at WF-R, Moore works to get them into Job Corps or in a GED program. "I don't feel nearly as bad if I see a student leaving here and going to an alternate program," he says.

The assistant principal has plenty of other ideas to help Cougar students: an initiative that gets kids reading for pleasure, a cooperative effort between school and businesses that will help at-risk kids and a conference that will inspire students to achieve by introducing adults who have overcome similar obstacles.

Ray says that's typical Moore, working long hours to help as many students as he can. "It's hard to please a big group of people all the time," she said, but Moore does it. "We're very lucky to have him."