Leigh McGown has spent more than two decades helping Yampah Mountain High School grow.

She can remember times before YMHS even had a real building to host school inside. Now, after 19 years as principal, she is stepping down to reconnect with her passion.

She will step down from the role after the end of the 2024-25 school year. She will fall back into her initial role of childcare director in YMHS’ infant nursery as she fulfills the dreams of her childhood self. 

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Before coming to Glenwood, McGown got her first educational experience at Durango High School. She spent her first 10 years at YMHS as an advisor to the Team Parent Program, later becoming childcare director when the school opened its own nursery. She stepped into the principal role nearly 20 years ago but will return to her original passion just shy of that milestone.

“I always wanted to be a midwife,” she said. “That’s how I ended up here. There was a position with the Teen Parent Program, and with my previous experience as a secondary teacher, it just sounded like something that lined up with my passions to work with the youth.”

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The Teen Parent Program is a crafty resource that helps level out the inequity between teen parents and non-teen parents. The Teen Parent Program helps young parents access the education they deserve while simultaneously supplying a daycare center and infantile educational services. There is also a joint period where parents and children learn together. Uniquely, YMHS helps teen parents reach their goals of a GED or high school diploma without having to sacrifice being a good parent. 

YMHS takes pride in the way they supply a safe space for students who may be in need of additional resources to succeed. The school emphasizes on its website that “behavior is driven by internal motivation and choices made to satisfy basic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun.” The philosophy is evident within the Yampah community, and McGown was struck by the intensity of the impact it has on students. 

“The students that come here are coming from four different school districts,” she said. “They come here for so many different reasons, and there is still a really strong community. I love watching the community they cultivate grow with people and friends they probably would have never encountered if they were at regular public school.”

Her explanation went much deeper, and backed up the strong community behind her. 

“I’m not one to naturally want to discipline kids,” she said with a smile. “Most students have a keen compass of ethics of right and wrong. When they get the opportunity to take the responsibility, they do it, and it’s so fulfilling to see them grow. I think that’s something that all of us can take into the world. To be honest, the youth seem to do that with much more grace than most adults and I think there is a lot to learn from witnessing young kids take responsibility.”

McGown doesn’t see the change as retirement, rather a new chapter in life. She knew it was time for a shift after finding herself unable to generate the same energy for the job as she previously could. 

“I’m not leaving the school entirely,” she explained. “I want to bring the best energy I can, and I realized the energy level I have isn’t what it once was. I’m still going to be the childcare director and work with students looking for internships and job opportunities.”

Through programs like the Colorado River Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) and Educational Pathways to Innovative Careers (EPIC), YMHS students have unique access to experiential career training. McGown’s new position will include helping teen students in need of immediate experience due to a lack of safety net. 

“I will be the EPIC representative here,” she said. “I call it work-based learning. Having to learn how to be an adult as a teenager is a very tricky thing to learn, and there are so many different things to do post secondary-school. So my job is going to be jumping between childcare director and helping students figure out what their next step is going to be.”

Following the end of the school year, McGown’s career will come full circle. When she takes her new (old) position in September, she will sit back down in a familiar spot — the very same desk she inhabited during her first stint as childcare director. 

“I’m literally going to get my same desk back; some of the stickers I put on it are even still there,” she said. “That’ll be really fun.”