Patrick (“Pat”) Monroe said he was a cook while serving in World War II. He wrote letters home that reported his military duty as boring and uneventful. He was peeling potatoes, not fighting Nazi facism. His family was proud of Pat’s service and never questioned his story. It wasn’t until his death that the family discovered the truth; Pat landed on the shores of Normandy in the early wave on D-Day. The battle was the turning point in the war. Germany would surrender less than a year later. And Patrick had been there. His family found his service medals. 

“One of the things I took away from him, and what I wanted to take away as a leader, is he was all about helping people,” said Albert Lea High School Principal Sean Gaston. “He was always helping people and avoiding credit for it.” 

Gaston says his Grandpa Pat is his biggest hero and role model. He spent his childhood by his grandpa’s side watching his actions, taking his advice and building his character. 

“He didn’t need the attention. He didn’t want that,” Gaston said as he explained the philosophy Patrick taught him. “He did it because that’s why [he was] here, to serve and help others.”

Gaston’s career in Albert Lea reflects this guiding principle. He started as a classroom history teacher helping to launch the Academy intervention program. Over the years, he would continue to be a part of the start of numerous programs through his work as an instructional coach, mentor program coordinator and as a member of the district Learning Team. Programs that included standards-based learning and helping ALHS receive level 1 certification as a Marzano High Reliability school. He served as the varsity baseball coach, Dean of Students and Vice Principal. This year he is taking on his new role as the new principal of Albert Lea High School. 

“I had written down five values that are important and that became a turning point for me as an administrator,” said Gaston. “If I could follow these five things every day, then it’s a good day.” 

The five values are on his desktop computer as a reminder of who he wants to be every day. 

“In my life I am a husband, a father, a teacher and an administrator. That’s my order of decision making,” said Gaston. “My second one is never to be outworked. My third one is never promise something you can’t deliver and once you promise it do everything you can to deliver it. My fourth one is never sacrificing doing what’s right to do what’s easy and my last one is to treat others like I would want to be treated.”

From how he talks about his family, it is apparent how much of a role they play in shaping his life and values. The influence not only came from his grandpa, but his parents, Keith and Patsy, as well. They were his biggest encouragement when it came to leadership. 

“I think one of the things they pushed from an early age was that you will always be a leader, you won’t follow,” Gaston said. “You’ll make your own choices, you will follow your own path.” 

It should also be noted that his grandmother, mother, sister and brother are all teachers. However, becoming a teacher is something they didn’t influence him to do.

“I never wanted to be a teacher. I never wanted to be a coach, I never wanted to become an administrator,” said Gaston. “Its not that I thought it was a bad job […] But I was just like, that’s not me.”

Instead, he went to college for political science at Notre Dame and was recruited to play baseball. His dad was a big influence in this part of his life because he was a former college baseball player. Keith Gaston was also a lawyer and convinced Gaston to go to college instead of being drafted out of high school by the Chicago White Sox. 

“I negotiated a contract and my dad was like, ‘They’re not paying you the same as your scholarship for four years at Notre Dame and you’ll leave with a college degree’,” said Gaston. 

After five years at Notre Dame, the plan was to go play baseball in Chicago. The Sox made a second offer but at that point he was 23, he had shoulder surgery and was engaged to his college girlfriend, Heidi Hansen. 

“I had obviously invested a lot of time and energy to get to that point and [was] interested in pursuing that,” said Gaston. “But I was actually the one who said no. I’m just done, ready to get married and be with my wife.”

In many ways, he followed his father’s path who went through a similar situation in his own baseball career.

“My dad was a big baseball guy,” Gaston said. “He was a good high school baseball player. He joined his college baseball team, but he was going to be a dad. As my dad has always done his whole life, responsibility comes first. So, baseball was done.”

According to Gaston, it was his wife’s future plans that influenced his own journey. They moved to rural Missouri because that’s where she was attending medical school. He began by working in financial aid at the university but became bored in the evenings in his new town and signed up to assist with the baseball team. Coaching was something he never thought he would do.

“The whole time I was thinking I wasn’t going to like this,” Gaston said of coaching. “The moment that it flipped was, I had a ninth grader named Adam. Not overly athletic, but a super nice kid. We worked, worked, worked. Then all of a sudden, seeing him take on a skill that a month before was something he thought he could never do.”

A switch flipped for both Adam and Gaston. That was his gateway into education. 

“By that spring I was enrolled in a teacher prep course and became a substitute,” said Gaston.
He went on to receive his teaching certificate from Buena Vista University. He later earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and his administrator’s license from the University of Minnesota -Twin Cities.

He ended up coming to Albert Lea because of his wife, Heidi. Her family is from Glenville and they now live on a piece of property that her family has owned for 120 years. Family was not the only reason she wished to come back, being an OBGYN she had the skills her community needed. 

“She is the opposite of me in many ways, but definitely in the sense that she knew she wanted to be a doctor from age four and never deviated,” Gaston said. “ Though she denied it at the time, with the idea of coming back here because this community needed OB care.”

They now have three children at their home in Glenville: Jackson, Isabelle and Charlotte. They have all made the switch from Glenville schools to Albert Lea Area Schools. Jackson is at the high school, Isabelle is at Southwest Middle School and Charlotte is attending Sibley Elementary.  

Gaston’s goals as principal begins with supporting teachers and student learning.

“Our teachers do a lot of amazing things, and their toolbox needs to be full all the time to address everything,” said Gaston, who believes teachers are asked to do and teach too many things in a school year. “One of the things I would love to see us become absolutely masterful about what we are teaching today.”

He plans to help in classrooms by being present and changing how administrators use their time.

“If you read the description of the principal, it says fifty percent of the job is instructional classroom leadership,” said Gaston. “We’re not in classrooms fifty percent of the time. I was thinking about how we get there, the only answer I could come up with is that we just go.”

Finally, his focus will be on school culture. He wants to make a positive impact and intends to continue making it a priority during his time at ALHS. 

“We continue to build a positive culture,” said Gaston who was a part of the team that introduced the Tiger Pride initiative last year which focuses on positive and respectful school culture. Tiger is an acronym that focuses on the school’s core values: teamwork, integrity, grit, engagement and respect. The program is designed to reinforce positive behavior and celebrate students who show their Tiger Pride.

“It’s the best method to get us to a spot where staff can focus on learning versus having to manage behaviors,” said Gaston.

Discipline policies were updated, with increased penalties for vaping, drug use and assaults. The Chemical Dependency Counselor will meet with students caught with substances in school. Violent incidents will result in automatic 10-day suspensions and potential change of placement. Gaston wishes to emphasize that most students are doing amazing things, and just a small percent are in need of interventions. 

Students will have three big changes to the school year. The first is the implementation of the cell phone pouches. Most students experienced the cell phone pouches in English and eighth grade classes last year. The school day is shifting to five minutes earlier in order to resolve a teacher supervision issue with bus duty at the end of the day within the district. 

The second change is that classes will start at 8:25 a.m. and school will let out at 2:55 p.m. 

The third change are new Commons tables and chairs were replaced over the summer and include Tiger graphics and text.

Building updates include routine maintenance like roofing and HVAC replacements that continue to be spread over a 10 years time frame. All teacher PC computers were removed from the building over the summer. The computers were going to become obsolete because Microsoft was stopping support of Windows 10 this fall.

Gaston can be found in his new office location across from Katie Cords and next door to Administrator on Special Assignment, Johanna Thomas. Gaston encourages everyone to stop by. 

“I was asked [in the principal interview] what is your end goal as a principal,” said Gaston. “And I was like, ‘to make it clear that every day that this place is the best to work and learn’.”