As the end of this school year approached, HHS Principal Shannon Dickerson gathered her staff together for a major announcement. She told them she had decided it was time for a change. Wanting more time for herself and her family, she announced she would be moving into a district director position focused on helping students prepare for life after school. To mark the occasion, we sat down with her to reflect on her time as HHS principal.
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On any given Sunday, there is one person at church you might have missed.
Well-dressed but unassuming, she often slipped quietly into the balcony just after everyone else had settled in. And by the final “amen,” she was often already gone.
Like everyone else in the room, she was there to worship and recharge. But for her, it was also one of the few quiet hours of the week as she leaned into a faith that helped sustain her through what some have called “the most difficult job in a school district.”
For seven years, Shannon Dickerson has served as a principal in Henderson ISD. For the last four years, she was the principal at Henderson High School. And being a high school principal in a small town means being a high school principal every day, even on Sundays.
“I love the people at church and I know they love me,” said Dickerson, sitting down in her office to talk about her time in the principal’s chair. “But sometimes I don't want to think about school and I don't want to answer questions or talk about what was or wasn’t posted on social media.”
While she was hesitant to even mention it during the conversation, it was clear that the comments and criticism that so easily find their way onto Facebook and other social media platforms have weighed on her over the years, even when people insist it is not personal.
“It is personal,” she said. “If you're talking about Henderson ISD, it's personal to me because I spend more waking hours up here and I have made more decisions that impacted more children up here than I have in my own home. And honestly, these are my neighbors, my friends, my children's friends. So when they talk about their kids, I know it’s personal to them.”
But being ‘personal’ is like a coin with two sides. In fact, when pressed, Dickerson admitted it is the personal relationships that make the job both highly demanding and immensely rewarding at the same time. She also knows relationships take time. And when considering the Class of 2026, she has had an unusually long time to build them.
After teaching science in Henderson and then moving into administration while at Leverett’s Chapel, Dickerson returned to HISD as an assistant principal at Northside Intermediate School. It was there she first met this year’s graduating seniors. Two years later, she followed them to middle school, becoming their principal. Then after three years, they moved to high school, and she did too. That journey together featured prominently in her recent graduation speech.
“I picked them up in the fourth grade and we went all the way to the stage,” she likes to say. “Probably, 80% of them, I can tell you which pod they were in back at Northside. And to be able to look them in the eyes, hug them and hand them a diploma…” She trailed off for a moment before smiling. “They were 207 of my own children, except I didn't get to claim them on my taxes!”
But it is not just the relationships she has built with students that she cherishes. It is also the bonds she has formed over the years with dozens of teachers and staff members.
“I'm proud of being able to build great teams,” Dickerson said as she laughed and pointed to the calendar on her office wall. It looked like any other spiral-bound photo calendar, except instead of cute cats with motivational phrases, each month featured a group photo of one of her instructional departments.
“In four years, we put together a quality team of people,” she said. “We've built quality and consistency.” Those are two qualities often difficult to maintain in public education. For Dickerson, however, they are non-negotiable.
“There has to be a consistent framework for how we make decisions. If you build a team of people who align with that, you don't have to make every decision because they're going to make the same decision or at least have the same intent when they make the decision.”
The personalized calendar is also reflective of the personal touch that has become part of Dickerson’s reputation. That reputation has earned deep respect from her staff, but it also requires deep emotional investment in the people around her.
“The emotional burden that you carry,” she said, visibly contemplating her words, “you expect it with the kids and the parents, but you also take it on for the teachers.”
“If someone's spouse is sick, you still need them to do their job, but you also have to balance the fact their spouse is sick. Or their personal children are having issues or they’ve had a pet for 17 years and they just had to put it to sleep. That’s not easy. They come here to teach kids because they’re great teachers. But they’re also moms and dads and daughters and brothers and sisters and they also bring their joys and their sorrows and their traumas with them too.”
“I genuinely want to do a good job, and I believe my team does too,” Dickerson said proudly. “And if I'm doing my job well, it should make their job easier.”
It is a core value she hopes to carry into her new position as Director of CTE (Career and Technical Education). In that role, she will work with middle school and high school students, helping them select the right courses and academic paths to prepare them for the future.
“I am excited,” she said, genuinely energized. “I will still be working with kids, getting to celebrate their wins and ensuring that they are prepared for life after high school.”
But instead of focusing on getting them to graduation, she will be focused on students all the way from sixth grade through post-diploma. And while the change may feel sudden to students and staff, Dickerson admitted it is not something that happened overnight.
“It's kind of been in the back of my mind for a while. The principal job is mentally and physically demanding, and doing it while being a wife and mom raising my own children is just not easy.”
Dickerson recounted stories of students who lost parents, struggled with poverty or simply fought to pass classes. Some worried about making the team. Others worried about simply making it to school. Some celebrated new jobs while others celebrated second chances. She talked about crying with students in hallways through breakups, loss and grief and celebrating victories on the field, in the ag arena and on the stage.
The same day she told her staff she was moving to a new role in the district, Dickerson made a special visit to one student's home. She organized a “mock” graduation ceremony just so the student’s homebound grandmother could witness her granddaughter getting her diploma. The grandmother passed away the following week.
“Seven years is a long time. And I don't think people realize it’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for seven years. Could I have done it one more year? Yes. Could I have done it five more years? Probably not. And when this opportunity came along, I knew now was the right time.”
Still, she knows she will struggle to leave behind the best parts of the job: the hallway conversations, the graduation hugs and the teachers who became family. She will miss the parents who learned to trust her with their children.
“The same thing that can be difficult in this job is the thing that you’ll miss,” she said. “I wish I could keep parts of it and not all of it, but that world doesn't exist.”
Despite the long nights, the emotional weight and the demands that sometimes followed her even into church on Sunday mornings, Dickerson did not hesitate for even an instant when asked whether she would do it all over again.
“Absolutely,” she said, nodding repeatedly and smiling. “Absolutely, I would. I love the kids. Being the high school principal is hard, but there's not a job that I've loved more.”