Bossier High School (BHS) Principal David Thrash will start the upcoming school year on a positive note after receiving the State Principal of the Year award in Baton Rouge.

Thrash accepted the award during the Louisiana Department of Education’s Cecil Picard Education Excellence Symposium.

“Any of the 30-plus principals in Bossier Parish could have won this award. I just happened to be the one this year. The level of expectations set on every principal in this parish is the same. I am representing every principal in the parish.”

Thrash has 27 years experience with Bossier Parish Schools — 17 years as a teacher and the last ten years as a principal; two years at Haughton Middle School and the last four years as BHS principal.

Though he has immense experience as an administrator and educator, Thrash attributes credit for the award to the tireless efforts of students and staff of BHS.

“When I came here we had 74 percent highly qualified teachers — today we are at 98 percent… Our school performance score has risen, our graduation rate is rising. Everything has slowly increased it takes time it is not an overnight fix,” said Thrash. “The staff at BHS deserves as much credit. I could not do what I do if it were not for them.”

Despite the progress in education and safety, Thrash believes BHS still has room for improvement.

“We fight a perception problem. The perception is not true — we have some of the best teachers in the parish and that is by design and not chance,” said Thrash. “We have the lowest number of fights in the parish. Most people think just the opposite.”

Thrash addressed an incident in May in which a student brought a handgun to school, as a setback in fighting — what he considers a false representation of BHS.

“Nobody is immune to someone making a poor choice. It makes you more aware that all kids are different,”  said Thrash. “They are challenged everyday with things they do not know how to handle and sometimes they do things such as that and make a poor choice.”

Thrash believes his open-door policy helps remedy situations such as the May incident.

“The kids refer to me as ‘Big Daddy.’ That is a compliment to me — I use that as being a father figure — a person that is there to help them reach their goal,” said Thrash. “The biggest issue is getting them here and showing them that BHS is a place they can thrive in. We are a family, this is home.”

Thrash believes the family and home aspects of Bossier High School come from a tradition held onto by generations of BHS graduates.

“There are a lot of old Bossier Bearkats out there and it makes me feel good I have brought that tradition back,” said Thrash. “I have got people now that their kids may go to Parkway, Airline and Benton, but they are still Bearkats — there is a lot of pride that goes along with Bossier High School.”

The only reputation Thrash wants BHS to have is a place of student excellence.

“I would like to see when people mention BHS they think of excellence. They think of it as a place where relationships are not made they are built upon,” said Thrash.

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