Principal and Student Play Hooky From Usual Roles

As a student for a day, Principal Helena Reaves immediately encountered one of the stickiest issues facing the seventh grade: squid.

Stinky, squishy, stone-dead squid to be exact. The kind you can get to know better only by slicing one open and taking a closer look.

So there she was, in blue jeans and a Balboa Middle School sweatshirt, carving on one of the rubbery mollusks, trying to poke out its eye and get at its ink sack.

“I think the last time I did this was when I was in college,” said Reaves, a second-year principal suddenly turned seventh-grade zoology student. “And that was years ago.”

Carrying on a long-standing Balboa tradition, Reaves agreed to trade places for a day with the students in each grade who raised the most money during the school’s annual fund-raising campaign.

In the seventh grade, 12-year-old James Spiesman outdid everyone, raking in $1,320 in magazine sales. For his effort, he got to play principal for a day, pulling his friends out of class to share a feast of soda and chocolate candy.

Reaves, on the other hand, got stuck shucking squid. She had brought a book in case there was a lull in classwork, but there would be no slowing down this day.

With her lab partner, Nathan Dybvig, 13, doing most of the work, Reaves helped pin back squid skin. Then she looked on as Nathan poked at its innards.

“If you can’t grab hold of it, use your tongue,” teacher George Maguire joked. A group of girls in the back of the room erupted in a high-pitched, “Eeeewwww!”

At the bell, the principal joined the torrent of students who flood Balboa’s hallways between classes, jostling for position to make it to the next place on time. For Reaves, zoology was followed by physical education, math, wood shop, English and world geography.

“This is one of the best days,” said Reaves, who came to the Ventura Unified School District nearly 20 years ago from the Los Angeles city school system. “It’s good because I get to see what they are going through.”

What they were going through in second period was a little three-on-three basketball. Physical education teacher Bill Bragg made Reaves do sit-ups and push-ups, and jog a lap around the basketball court.

But he warned everyone else to take it easy on her.

“We have the principal with us today, so be nice,” he told the students. “If you want your career here at Balboa to end on a reasonable note, be very nice.”

Whipping off her glasses, Reaves explained that she hadn’t played basketball in about 10 years. Nevertheless, she rolled up her sweatshirt sleeves and hit the court to fulfill her promise.

“I used to love basketball,” she said. “But that’s when they used to have girls’ rules.”