In April, campus supervisor Ric Calhoun (he/him) was named the 2025 Education Support Professional of the Year by the Washington Education Association. As a campus supervisor, he monitors the campus for security issues and acts as a liaison between administrators and students. He can often be seen driving around campus in a golf cart and directing traffic at the front of the school in the morning.
“As a campus supervisor, most people would think of it as a security job,” Calhoun said in a video published by WEA on Facebook. “There’s a lot of parts of my job that are security, but I think it’s more of a relationship-building job.”
Calhoun said he didn’t find out about the award until the day he earned it and didn’t know much about how he was nominated.
“It was actually a pretty big surprise, because usually Mrs. Beeson and I are out doing traffic, and Mr. Desautels asked us to come in to talk to the staff about something, and I remember being a little annoyed,” Calhoun said, later clarifying that Desautels had asked him to come in to explain something because the staff might be more receptive to hearing it from Calhoun. “You’re the principal; why would you explain something that I would explain? But it turned out it was because the vice president of WEA and then some other members came down and presented me the award in front of the staff.”
Calhoun said he hopes he had a positive impact on the Inglemoor community. In particular, he said working at Inglemoor appealed to him because it was similar to schools he had attended but was more ethnically diverse, which was important because he couldn’t remember any educators of color at his schools.
“I wanted to make sure that if years from now, someone said, ‘Did you have any educators of color that made a difference in your life?’ I was hoping that we stood out for someone,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun said he hopes that when people look back on Inglemoor, they consider him someone who made their time here more enjoyable. He felt particularly supported by the community after his daughter passed away from cancer and former students showed up to her celebration of life despite not knowing his daughter.
“Because sometimes kids leave and then you never see them again. The fact that I meant enough to these kids that when they saw a time when I needed somebody to be there for me, they were there,” Calhoun said. “One of the things I’ve seen that’s been the most special about this place is people just showing up for people when they really need them to.”
Even though he received the award, Calhoun said he’s not the best ESP at Inglemoor and that he’s just “a guy who does (his) job.” Calhoun said his award is also for all the other people supporting education who don’t always get recognized.
“I really do believe that I won this award, but this award’s for all the ESPs at this school. So anybody that wants to thank me, I would hope that they would spend a little extra time thanking the other people — thank their bus drivers when they get off, thank the people that are helping clean up, thank Mrs. Beeson.”
