Just a few hundred yards away from Grant’s home football field, tucked in a small office inside the school, Diallo Lewis is starting down a new path in his life. The walls are somewhat bare and there are still things to put away. But summer is winding down and the 2015-16 school year is starting.
Usually at this time of year, Lewis can be found on the football field as the head coach of the Generals – a job he’s had for 10 years. But a lot has changed since last season.
When then-vice principal Kristyn Westphal left in July, it triggered a flurry of administrative moves. Lewis, who had filled in as an administrator, applied for and got the job as one of the school’s new vice principals.
“When people ask me ‘Why’d you give up coaching?’ my response has been: ‘I’m still a coach,’” says the 41-year-old Lewis. “And when I say I’m still a coach, I mean my team has just changed. I’m not coaching football anymore. It’s an opportunity to have a bigger team.”
Despite the new vice principal title, Lewis’ goal for the roughly 1,600-student community remains the same: finding a way to make sure all kids attain success at Grant. Given his tenure at the school, he is unabashed in his role, especially as the only administrator who is African American. He won’t duck being a role model for students of color.
“Students just need to be in the right setting to have an opportunity to be successful.” – Diallo Lewis
Grant health teacher Randy Heath, who coached Lewis when he was in high school, said the new job is a great fit. He’s glad Lewis stayed at Grant and didn’t head off to another school.
“Your perspective, your experiences, your tie to this community, you need to be here at Grant for the kids who are here,” Heath said to Lewis when the offer came. “There are other opportunities out there, but you will not affect kids at those schools like the way you can affect kids at Grant.”
The Grant neighborhood is all too familiar to Lewis. He was born and raised in Northeast Portland at a time when gentrification had not taken full swing in the area. He was surrounded by family members who took a hand in raising him.
“When you talk about how it takes a village, I’m blessed to have had a village poured into me,” he says.
His parents split up when he was younger. Communication with his father was sporadic, at best. He remembers thinking that when he became a dad, he would be heavily involved in his children’s lives.
His mother was ever vigilant. She helped him understand, from a young age, the challenges he would face throughout his life. “When I think of role models, she would be the foundation of who I am,” he says today. “It was always clear that being black, you’ve got to work hard, maybe harder than some of your white peers.”
Lewis attended Irvington and Fernwood growing up. He recalls times where he would be one of the only black kids in a class or on a baseball team. From that, Lewis says he learned to navigate different social settings.
He played baseball, football and basketball, focusing heavily on his athletic growth. In school, there was room for improvement. Although he had plenty of potential, Lewis says he didn’t meet it. There was always a lack of educators in his schools pushing him to excel. He wanted to be that educator.
Lewis transferred to Jesuit High School as a sophomore. While most kids drove their own cars to class, Lewis faced a different commute. Every morning, he would wake up early to catch the No. 54 TriMet bus, riding it for an hour before reaching school.
“I think I was also educating the people at Jesuit,” he says. “It was their opportunity to interact with someone of color from across town who came from a different background.”
Lewis’ time at Jesuit was anything but negative. Not only was he receiving a good education, but he got to be a part of the football program. Heath, who takes over for Lewis as Grant’s head coach, was an assistant coach at Jesuit when Lewis was a junior and senior.
As quarterback, Lewis led the team deep into the state playoffs his senior year. Heath says: “He was the focal point of the team as a senior. As he went, the rest of the team went.”
After graduating from Jesuit in 1992, Lewis headed to Portland State University on a football scholarship. There, he became more in touch with issues around race by taking black studies courses.
At the time, pursuing a career in education was just an idea. Then a trip to Toronto in 1995 changed his perspective. His uncle, a former pro football player, was running “Goals for Youth,” an alternative school for at-risk kids near the Canadian city.
He was intrigued by his uncle’s work with young people and by the diversity within the city. Coming back to Portland, Lewis had his mind set on education. He wanted to help kids reach for success.
Lewis received his bachelor’s degree in social science, with a certificate in black studies from Portland State. He enrolled in graduate school and got a master’s degree in counselor education in 2003.
He worked as a coach at Jesuit during his spare time and later held jobs in the social services area. In one program, he helped fathers play an active role in the lives of their children. At another job, he worked with youth who weren’t having success in regular classrooms, giving them the skills to earn a GED.
“People would see the students who have gotten their GED as someone who has failed or are struggling,” he says. “Students just need to be in the right setting to have an opportunity to be successful.”
He worked at Lincoln High School as a student support specialist. There, he was working to support kids of color, mostly black students, with academic work.
At Lincoln, Lewis noticed just how many stereotypes were being placed on kids of color and their ability to learn. “The teachers at Lincoln felt that they offered this elite education that many kids couldn’t keep up with, especially black kids coming from the east side of town,” he says. “It wasn’t that those kids didn’t have the ability to do that work.”
He started a student athlete program for the boys’ basketball team. With help from parents, coaches and the administration, he brought in student athletes three days a week at 6 a.m. They were given time to work on homework and receive help from teachers.
In just a matter of a semester, Lewis watched these kids who had never received a GPA higher than a 2.2 or 2.3 end with GPAs of 3.5 and above.
He came to Grant in 2003 and took a job as a school counselor. Early on, Lewis focused on getting kids of color into AP or accelerated courses. He remembers, during forecasting, calling kids into his office. Many of them had never even thought about taking the challenging courses. Lewis wanted to support them in making the decision to get in.
With help from a program called Redirecting and Empowering All People at Portland State, Lewis also helped to start Grant’s first black studies course.
Beyond his counseling position, Lewis has remained big on sports. When he first got to Grant, the team hadn’t won a playoff game in 23 years, he says. Lewis knew there was room for growth.
Over the past ten years, the football team has had a record of 74-34 with seven Portland Interscholastic League titles.
But there was much more to football, for Lewis, than the game scores. Building strong relationships with the players was key. He still considers himself close with many of the players he had early on who helped him build the program.
Some of those past players have followed a similar career path. “A number of them are working in areas where they can give back to their communities,” he says proudly. “Serving to see the growth of young people and others. That’s so special for me.”
After building strong relationships with players over the past 12 years, choosing the new vice principal job over football would be difficult. But with advice from people like Heath, he knew he had to take it.
“Grant has always been a place I’ve been interested in being as an educator, as a coach, to have the opportunity to impact the lives of young people,” Lewis says.
Working alongside the two other vice principals, Liz Mahlum and KD Parman, the three have come to the job with their own sets of ideas.
Having known Lewis before the position, Mahlum is already familiar with his working style. “He always has really great ideas and asks really good questions and wants to understand why we’re doing things a certain way,” she says.
Aside from planning for the school year, Lewis remains big on family.
One of his sons, Chris Lewis, is attending Northern Arizona University to play football this year. The other, Marcus Harris, is a freshman at Grant. After the death of his mother in 2009, Lewis fully understands the importance of a parent-child relationship.
Now, with the vice principal position, Lewis can take relationship building to another level.
He will focus on ninth and 10th-grade discipline this year. For his part, he wants to find ways the school can have fewer incidents so more attention can be focused on the needs of the classroom.
He will also be working with kids of color, the Collaborative Action Research for Equity Team, and reducing absences within the school. Most of all, Lewis is excited to see all students reach success at Grant. He is ready to help that happen.
“Sometimes it’s not about one’s ability,” he says. “If we can get them there, and became active participants in their learning, I think we can see kids do extremely well.”
