In his first address to BHS students on Aug. 17, Interim Principal James Reed III seemed calm and collected. He started with a promising “Go Bison,” but there was tension in the air.

Onlookers in the brand new auditorium wondered: Was Reed going to misspeak? Was there going to be a sudden outburst from a student that would make a bad impression?

Reed’s demeanor was serious; he held the audience. His presence communicated experience and vision.

After 27 years in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district, Reed retired in 2015. Last year, he worked as interim principal at Shaker Heights High School. Now Beachwood has hired him for the same position.

Reed was born in Cleveland and graduated from Shaker in 1971. His parents moved to Shaker after living briefly in Alabama, and he grew up in Shaker’s Ludlow neighborhood.

“[My family] was the second black family on the street,” he said. “We lived in a community called Ludlow which was a model for attempted integration in America.”

The Ohio Bell Magazine published “Cosmopolitan Pioneers” in 1967, a story which profiled the Ludlow Community Association (LCA) .

According to this article, white real estate agents had abandoned the Ludlow home market, and two banks made it extremely difficult for white families to finance homes because they felt that a changing neighborhood makes risky mortgages.

As time went on, the LCA got through those challenges.

“No matter whether a family’s skin is white, black brown or yellow, when they move into Ludlow they receive a wholehearted welcome from their neighbors,” the article stated.

Reed has raised his four kids in the home that he grew up in.

“I still live in Shaker Heights,” he said. “I am down about a mile from Shaker Square… that was the house that I actually grew up in. When my mother died and my father needed some care from us, we  moved back in and we lived there for 22 years.”

Both of Reed’s parents were trained as teachers.

“My mother taught in Cleveland for about 35-40 years,” he said. “My father had a degree in elementary education but was told when he came to Cleveland, in the 40’s after World War II, that they didn’t hire black males for education. [They told him that] he needed to go to the post office.”

Instead of being angry about this encounter, Reed has used it as a learning experience.

“I think that [the way I interact with kids is influenced by the way I] was raised,” he said. “[When] I tell students some of the stories of my own life…it gives them the idea that we didn’t always have some of the free exchange and some of the opportunities that we now have for women, racial minorities and all sorts of personalities and lifestyles. So it really is a very good time for students…they really have doors opened now that have never been opened for folks.”

In addition to Reed’s unique perspective on life, he also has extensive experience as an educator.

“I started my teaching career in Cleveland Heights,” he said. “I was a social studies teacher for 11 years at Wiley Middle School, and then I moved to the high school and became a high school administrator for 16 years there.”

English teacher Todd Butler has known Reed since Butler was in middle school.

“[I’ve] known Mr. Reed for over 20 years,” he wrote. “He became a baseball coach at Cleveland Heights High School while I was playing there. He was a teacher at Wiley Middle School at the time, but became a principal at the high school later on.”

After working in a variety of school districts, Reed has come to some conclusions.

“Kids are all the same in all of these places,” he said. “They come to school, they want to fit in, they want to excel in school, [and] they want to be able to pursue their interests. In that respect, every kid in America is the same and kind of the same that kids have always been in high school.”

Reed has heard that Beachwood is no exception to this rule.

“Kids were very community-minded in Cleveland Heights,” he said. “Kids were community minded at Shaker, and I understand that you folks are community-minded here. You want to excel in the classrooms, you want to excel on the athletic fields, and you want to be a part of the civic life of the community.”

Reed was not the first candidate for principal. Superintendent Dr. Bob Hardis and the Board of Education initially planned to move forward with Mike Acomb, from Lewis Elementary School in Solon. However, Hardis concluded that Acomb would not be the right fit for Beachwood, which is when he, along with the Board, started the search for interim principal.

“When I did not recommend Acomb to the board we then switched [from looking for a permanent principal] to an interim principal,” Hardis said. “What I opted to do is say ‘we’re going to hire an interim principal’, the board supported that…and that would allow us to post this position and do the entire search process over a much more elongated period of time, which I hope will benefit the process.”

The search for a new permanent principal will begin in either February or March. Hardis is extremely pleased with how things turned out, however.

“I feel incredibly fortunate that [Reed] was available and interested,” Hardis said. “There is a very limited pool of candidates. Many of the people who applied originally to become the high school principal applied again and said ‘I’ll be your interim principal’…And honestly I thought… I didn’t want anyone to view their interim year as a year long interview for the eventual job.”

According to Reed, being an interim principal and a full-time principal are different. However, both Hardis and Reed just want this transition year to be smooth.

“My understanding is that what I need to do is to provide a smooth transition from Dr. Klein who had been here a number of years,” Reed said. “I need to try and smooth the transition into whoever will take over for me. [I want to] offer a smooth transition to students who might be used to a certain kind of situation.”

Butler is excited that Reed will be working here this year.

“I have a great respect and appreciation for Mr. Reed. He inspired me in many ways to teach and to coach. So, yes, I like him very much,” Butler wrote.

Reed has said that he is excited to work at Beachwood.

“I am really excited to be here,” he said. “Plus… I’ve worn black and gold for a long time, [and] I had to do red and white last year. But I really do feel comfortable in black and gold.”