Nikole Babb
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“Yes, it has my name on it, but it really should just be a Circle High School award.”
Circle High School celebrated their Assistant Principal, Aaron Lechien, with a surprise pep assembly on March 28 after they found out that he had won the award for Kansas High School Assistant Principal of the Year. While he remains humble, Lechien spoke about his love for helping children and the administration staff who’ve guided him through his career.
After graduating from Emporia High School, Lechien began his education at Friends University on a baseball scholarship working towards a biology and business degree with the intent on becoming a pharmacist. Although he was on track to receive a biology degree with a business and chemistry minor, several of his own teachers impacted him enough to gear his career towards education and helping others.
“I had a lot of teachers and coaches when I was younger that had a really big impact on my life and I kind of wanted to follow in their shoes,” said Lechien.
That’s when he went back to school to receive his bachelor’s degree in biology education from Southwestern College. He also graduated as the first person with that degree from that college. Before that he spent his time coaching baseball at Butler Community College 2006-2007. After receiving his degree, he went on to teach science at Wichita High School East while also coaching baseball at the high school for eight years from 2009-2016.
As he worked as a teacher he learned to love the administration duties as well. He joined an administrative internship at Wichita East before being promoted to Assistant Principal at Wichita High School South where he stayed for five years from 2016-2021.
While Lechien isn’t a Butler County or Circle District graduate, his wife Cari is. She went through and graduated from Circle High School after growing up in Towanda and decided with Aaron to send their children to the same school. The family was living in Bel Aire while they worked for Wichita Public Schools but still sending their students to Circle.
“My kids have always attended Circle schools, so this was always sort of a landing spot for me in my career,” said Lechien. “This is my fourth year at Circle High School but nine total as an Assistant Principal.”
Aaron was hired in 2021 as Circle High School’s Assistant Principal and his family moved to Benton shortly after. He says living the rural town life has been a change of pace, but he would never want to leave the community or Circle Schools at this point.
Being named the Kansas Assistant Principal of the Year was an overwhelming feeling for Aaron as he isn’t one to take the spotlight often. He continued to emphasize that his love for education comes from continual learning and helping kids grow and learn.
“Everyone who gets into education should want to be around students, should want to try and help students and should want to try and guide students,” said Aaron. “In the teaching realm it was learning specific content while teaching students accountability, being on time and meeting deadlines that prepares them for what’s next.”
For Aaron that means continual career advancement. This presents itself as a promotion he’s taken from High School Assistant Principal to Middle School Principal that he will take on next school year. He’s excited to work with a different age group of kids and having an impact on even more kids and working with new staff members.
He said that while the award recognizes himself, it’s the school district that deserves the award.
“Yes, it (the award) has my name on it, but it really should just be a Circle High School award,” said Aaron. “This is kind of cliché but my mindset for education is that you’re always learning, or you should be.”
When the high school gathered for a pep assembly to celebrate Aaron, he had no clue what was going on. To his knowledge it was another spring sports pep assembly – that was until he saw his kids, his wife, her parents and his parents, cousins, and even his sister from Mulvane with her newborn baby and brother from Colorado waiting on him with congratulations.
“I’ve had a lot of good mentors in the past and currently here at Circle,” said Aaron. “I could go on for ages but our administration and school board are amazing and so supportive. Our kids are fantastic, parents are engaged and our community does a great job of supporting the school. I don’t ever want to leave here, I feel like I’m at home. I’m not from here but I would call this home.”
