Dalton becomes new Baseline Middle School Principal

By James Windell

If you want things to stay the same, then Nick Dalton is not the right person for you.
Several times in a recent interview at Baseline Middle School, Nick Dalton, who starts the new school year as the Baseline Middle School principal, Dalton flat out said that he is someone who repairs broken systems.
“I am the guy who people hire to change systems or to build them,” he says. “That’s what I’ve done in multiple positions.”
It’s difficult to list all of his previous jobs because there are many. And he himself says that if anyone ever saw his complete curriculum vitae it would “blow their minds.” But just two of his former jobs were working in public health in Northern California through five years of fires and two years in India with Teach for India, a nonprofit educational organization in India whose mission is that “one day all children will attain an excellent education.”
Although Dalton wasn’t born in South Haven, he spent some of his formative years in South Haven Schools when his mother was a music teacher. In fact, when he was in college at Western Michigan University, he would fill in for his mother in her classes.
Music and theater have been major aspects of his life – which makes his background special for a middle school principal. He graduated from Western Michigan University with a BFA degree. He said after that he lived his dream by traveling in Europe performing in the musical Hair, and then working with artists in New York City in the organization Artists Striving to End Poverty. He went on to work in the New York Public Schools with the refugee and immigrant communities with the International Rescue Committee and the Refugee Youth Coalition. And ended up in India as the head of Teach for India. “The organization had this dream to prove that arts could bridge the curriculum gap,” he says.
After working in California and Illinois, he’s back in South Haven bringing his unique background and dynamic personality to the middle school. He describes himself as a systems thinker. “So, I might come across as hippy-dippy, but I’m actually really type A. I just cloak it really well,” he says.
Though new at Baseline Middle School, he is already introducing changes. He says that he emphasizes communication. Not only with students but with their parents and with teachers.
One of the things that he brought back immediately when he took on the job as principal was a parent advisory board and he notes that they’ve already had their first meeting.
Then, there is the idea of getting Paul Layendecker, the long-time Southwest Michigan radio broadcaster, on board with reviving the multimedia room at Baseline.
And there is the way problem kids will be handled.
“We no longer have detention,” he says. “The point of this was to get more relational and stop making minor things that are developmentally normal punitive with harsh consequences. It also puts the consequence back in the hands of the administration, and not in the hands of teachers in the classroom. This way, teachers can just focus on being relational and teaching – which is their job.”
He’s also created a Response Team.
“We don’t have a Pass Room where the ‘bad’ kids are sent,” he says. “Instead, we have a Response Team, which includes the Assistant Principal, counselor, myself, and our Van Buren ISD partners. We are utilizing the trained skills of our professional mental behavioral health staff to take care of the mental and behavioral health needs of our students.”
This includes the relaunch of weekly child study team meetings. Dalton explains that this team meets alongside any other teachers or paraprofessionals that need to be included in the conversation in order to determine how best to serve the emerging needs of students.
“It doesn’t matter whether the concern is academic or behavioral,” he says. “By meeting regularly, we can track patterns and best serve the needs of not only our students but also the families that live with those students. We are a direct reflection of our community, and we have to service them accordingly.” 
Dalton says that he has a particular approach to education.
“My approach to education comes from the Latin root of the word – which is educere,” he says. “It means to lead out, draw out, or bring forth. It focuses on awakening in individuals their innate potential and internal capabilities.
“Often, students are treated like empty buckets to be filled, rather than resources to be inspired and revealed. If we help our future leaders realize what they love, what they are good at, and what they want to change in the world – then we have done our job in helping our students realize how they fit into society as global citizens. We want them to have purpose and belonging.”