This piece is the fourth in a feature series for National Assistant Principals Week. Read the rest here.
There was the brisk spin and turn-around to the beat of the music—a vibrant, percussion-driven song—as Assistant Principal Rom Crespo danced with his wife in the dim light of a Latin restaurant’s rooftop. The silver band on his wrist caught the shine from fairy lights above, revealing the engravement that read, “Endless Love R♥D” with him and his wife’s first initials.
“We do a lot of Latin dancing, like salsa, cumbia, merengue, bachata,” Crespo said. “Usually, we’ll get there early so we can eat first at that restaurant, and then we’ll dance for a couple hours. I call my wife the Energizer Bunny. I’m just like, ‘okay, this is the last one,’ and she’s like ‘no, no, no, we’re still going, come on.’ I’m like, ‘all right, yeah,’ so I’ll try to keep up with her.”
Crespo and his wife have been married for 25 years now, and in his marriage, they abide by the 2-2-2 rule, meaning every two weeks, there will be a date night; every two months, they plan a weekend getaway; and every two years, they’ll have a vacation outside the country.
“You get all excited when you first meet them and you’re dating and you’re trying to impress them and everything’s good, but once you get married, a lot of times all that excitement kind of goes down because life just happens,” Crespo said. “But one thing I learned is never stop dating your spouse.”
Another routine Crespo abides by is daily exercise and healthy eating.
“Once you pass 30, you lose muscle every year that you get older, and so exercising is key to maintain your health and your activity level,” Crespo said. “I like to do my exercise early in the morning, so I get up at like 4:30 to go work out because I know how the day can get.”
Every morning, Crespo blocks out the tasks on his calendar.
“I try to make sure that’s structured, even at my house,” Crespo said. “If it’s not on the calendar, it’s probably not going to happen. My wife will tell me, ‘Remember a couple weeks ago, I told you we’re going to be doing this? Put it on the calendar, babe.’ I need to make sure that structure is there at all times so I can make sure I pinpoint everything that needs to be accomplished that day, and so I’ll prioritize things well.”
The most time consuming task on Crespo’s schedule is often student investigations, whether it’s discipline-related or off-campus.
“That takes the majority of our time, which is not why we all got into this,” Crespo said. “We wanted to make a difference and to help our students grow and teachers grow but sometimes, we get locked into those investigations.”
Outside of investigations, Crespo is mainly in charge of technology, GT, student initiatives, map testing, the intervention program, and functions as the science liaison. Crespo has spent 29 years in education, taught at 5 schools and served as an administrator for 9 others.
“I’ve learned throughout the years how to better work with all key stakeholders, such as students, parents, community members, and teachers as well,” Crespo said. “I think with that growth comes maturity, and in time comes building of capacity, knowing my job more, knowing what more to expect from everybody, and how to better reach those that need more guidance. So all those different experiences have given me a plethora of ways and strategies to work with others.”
Crespo started his extensive education career at Jersey Village High School, where he began volunteer coaching.
“As many coaches understand, coaching takes a lot of time out of your life, a lot of hours, a lot of commitment,” Crespo said. “I was doing that on a volunteer basis. The head coach, at the end of the year, was like, ‘Hey, you’re doing a great job, but nobody’s leaving, so I don’t have a position to give you.’”
Crespo then applied for other opportunities, hoping for a full-time teaching and coaching dual contract.
“I was able to get a position in HISD at Reagan High School, which is now Heights High School, but back then it was called Reagan,” Crespo said. “I loved my time there. Taught, coached for two years there and at that time, I wanted to move up the coaching ranks and wanted to get back into the suburbs. I wanted a bigger program to learn more, to get better at what I was doing. And so, I went to a job fair here in Fort Bend and got hired at Kempner High School as a teacher and coach.”
It was during his time there that Crespo first considered becoming an administrator after the principal suggested it.
“I wanted to move up the coaching ranks, be a head coach one day, but then I started thinking, ‘I think I can make a bigger impact as an administrator than just as a teacher and coach,’ and that’s when I went back to school,” Crespo said. “At that time, I really wanted to focus on getting my master’s and working on getting my first administrative job, so I left Kempner and came to Bush as a teacher and their administrative intern.”
After a semester there, Crespo moved to Alief at Hastings High School. Although his family lived in Katy, Crespo was “really enjoying the experience” at Hastings and hadn’t been looking for other opportunities, until a friend called him about a possible administrative job at Morton Ranch High School.
“They had just opened that year, and she called me, and she was like, ‘Hey, you know, I put in a good word for you,’” Crespo said. “I said, ‘For what?’ She said, ‘You can come over here to Morton as assistant principal.’”
Crespo initially turned down the offer. Later, after a reference and some encouragement from his principal at Hastings, Crespo interviewed and got the position at Morton Ranch, where he stayed for nine years. Later, he was offered a central office position.
“I said, ‘Well, that’s a different opportunity to work in the administration building, different networking, trying to learn different aspects of the district,’” Crespo said. “I did that for three years, but I really missed the school. I really missed the kids. I missed the teachers. And so I said, ‘No, I need to get back on campus because that’s my love. That’s my joy.”
After he opened Paetow High School as assistant principal, Crespo got a call from a former superintendent in Katy, who offered an opportunity to be the principal at Nacogdoches High School three hours away. Crespo ended up renting an apartment there and coming home on the weekends until his daughter’s graduation.
“My wife was very excited about moving to a small town,” Crespo said. “So after two years, I was like, ‘Okay, you ready?’ And she said, ‘Well, I’ve been thinking, I don’t want to go. I want to stay.’”
Ultimately, Crespo wound up as principal at Baytown Lee High School in Goose Creek ISD, an hour away.
“It’s too much time away on the road,” Crespo said. “I decided to find something closer to home. And so here I am, Fort Bend.”
This is Crespo’s third successive year in Fort Bend after 20 years elsewhere, and he said he’s “glad to be back.”
Gratitude notes from those who know Crespo best:
Principal Tara Baker: “I’m so impressed with the way that he came in and within the first week, it felt like he was a part of our team. You always wonder when there’s change in administration or in any department, like, ‘Is this person going to be a good fit for our team?’ because that’s important in whatever job you do, whatever team you’re on. He fits in so well with us. He’s a very hard worker. He’s extremely smart, and I’m glad that he joined our team when he did, because he was our missing piece.”
Administrative Assistant Christy High: “Dr. Crespo is very professional. He likes to have fun. There’s a lot of depth to him. He has a lot of knowledge that he brings to the table, and he’s really good. He really cares about the students. He has a lot of stories that come along. He likes to do interesting things, travels and things like that. He’s a very well-rounded person and in terms of his interests.”
Assistant Principal Matthew Warren: “Dr. Crespo came on board this year and he is a wealth of knowledge because he’s been in this profession for quite some time. He’s very task oriented, and I’ve learned a lot from working with him.”
Calculus teacher Ricardo Garcia: “He’s found his place here very quickly. He’s always super professional and comes across as quiet, but you get him talking about things that he’s really interested in, you’ll have a great conversation with him. We have bonded over our love of the University of Houston Cougars, and he shared some football tickets with me so I was able to take my kids to a football game earlier this season, and it was just really, really cool that he reached out and offered those to me.”
History teacher Kelsey Bates: “I work with Crespo for COGS. With Dr. Crespo being newer to the school, and me being newer to the school, it was interesting the first few times we met because I had no idea, going in, what kind of administrator he was going to be. And he is very go-with-the-flow, happy, do what we need to do, take care of business. But also there’s no worry, there’s no rush.
Anytime I came to him with a problem, he would always very calmly be like, ‘Okay, what can we do? What’s the options?’ And we’d lay them out and he’d be like, ‘Let’s pick this one.’ Or I’d come to him and be like, ‘Hey, this is my problem, these are my solutions, which one is the best?’ And he would instantly pick one. So he was always someone who has always been very calm, like with handling GT and the newer changes this year, he just is like, ‘We’ll handle it. We’ll take care of it. It’s not a big deal.’
I tend to get overstressed or worried because I want to make sure I’m checking all my boxes and he’s just always like, ‘Yeah, we’re good. We got this. It’s taken care of.’ And so that was a really nice relationship and personality trait that I found out. He’s always there and always ready to help and always has a solution.”
