DOCKSIDE Major Mentor – Donley known for impact as educator

By Craig Howard Splash Contributing Editor

Bring up the name Leanne Donley with past and present students of Central Valley High School and you are bound to hear tones of respect and admiration normally reserved for folk heroes.

Now in her 28th year as a teacher and advisor at CV, Donley oversees a Leadership class that has impacted thousands of kids in a myriad of positive ways. Beyond coordinating programs like ASB and time-honored events like Stinky Sneaker, Donley’s class steps up to run a mammoth food drive each year along with a blanket project that benefits local nonprofits.

“Leanne rallies the students and has just championed the food drive,” said Cal Coblentz, executive director of Spokane Valley Partners, which benefits from the donation of food and monetary donations each year.

Donley has not gone unnoticed for her efforts. In 2003, she was named Washington State Advisor of the Year and the following year was honored as Western States Advisor of the Year.

“Mrs. Donley provides a priceless experience for students, a sense of belonging and opportunities for growth – two things high schoolers desperately need,” said Joe McFarlane, who graduated from CV in 2004 and is now a successful attorney. “It’s been almost 20 years since I was in her class and I still look back with fondness at the positive experiences she provided.”

Donley says she simply tries to “let students know they have the power to make a positive impact.”

As a student at Lake Stevens High in Western Washington, Donley participated in soccer, tennis, band and cheerleading. She earned good grades without making much of an effort and found herself drifting until enrolling in a Leadership class that brought new purpose and direction. The program would be the template for what she started many years later at CV.

After graduating in 1988, Donley headed across the Cascades for college, the only student in her senior class to enroll at Eastern Washington University. While she had lost every ASB election in high school, Donley emerged from every ballot at EWU as a winner. She immersed herself in student government and found her stride in roles like vice president of finance with the executive team.

Donley left Cheney with a degree in Communications and Mass Organization in 1992 and latched on with a hotel chain in event management. The work was steady but left Donley feeling flat. It was around that time she began volunteering at the YMCA School for Homeless Children.

“It put my struggles in perspective,” she said. “I knew I needed to go back to school and be a teacher.”

Donley went back to EWU, attending night classes while working during the day. The rigorous schedule paid off with a bachelor’s degree in Secondary English. By the 1994-95 school year, she had joined the staff at CV. In the fall of 1996, she launched the Leadership class. Over the years, Donley has taught subjects like history and English but it’s the Leadership curriculum that has become her signature.

“I feel really lucky because every day, I learn something from my kids,” Donley said. “My goal is to help students create a positive climate and culture.”

Donley and her husband Chris met at EWU and have been married since 1996. They are proud parents of two daughters – Lauren, a college freshman, and Cora, a freshman at CV.

Q: Growing up, how did teachers impact your life and how did those lessons translate into the teacher and advisor that you became?

A: Teachers saved me. I felt invisible and they saw me. I used over-involvement as an avoidance tactic. They weren’t fooled. They took a chance on me when I wouldn’t take one on myself. Some of my most impactful core memories are teachers reaching out. Mrs. Pierson taking me for a long walk during one of my classes. Now, I understand the value of personal connection and breaks from the pressure of life. Mr. Erickson created a leadership class because leadership is an action not an election. My leadership team is patterned after this. Frau Eggert treated us like adults, listened and heard us as though we had something to say. I would hope that I did and do the same.

Q: You began your professional career in a field outside education. How did the experience of volunteering at the YMCA during that time change your career course?

A: I realized early on that nylons and proper accessories were not my thing. I was so unhappy. The simple act of helping others reduces even the darkest day. The time I spent at the School for Homeless Children gave me the courage to quit my job and follow my ne found passion. I didn’t know I wanted to be like those teachers who loved me when I was unlovable until I got to love some of the most difficult students. I keep a quote by Jeffrey R. Holland at my desk: “And if those children are unresponsive, maybe you can’t teach them yet, but you can love them. And if you love them today, maybe you can teach them tomorrow.”

Q: OK, hypothetical. You’ve been a mentor to many students at CV over the years dealing with a variety of challenges. You had some of your own as an adolescent. How do you think teacher Leanne would have supported and encouraged student Leanne?

A: That is so hard because this teacher Leanne just wants to roll her eyes at student Leanne. But what I tell my students now is what I heard nearly 40 years ago. “It will be OK.” “You are enough.” “What you do isn’t who you are.” “Breathe.” And then, “You are loved”. Sometimes that is all it takes to give us the courage to keep

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Donley

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Q: We hear a lot about how kids today are mostly self-centered, glued to electronic devices and not real interested in others outside themselves. Yet you run a program where a lot of the focus is on service and bettering the community. Are kids not getting credit for being more selfless or at least trying?

A: Easy answer – No! Kids these days are honest. They find authenticity of great value. They want to know why because they know the importance of people and time. They want to make a difference. They are resilient. They are flexible. They are courageous. There is nothing they cannot do if we, as adults, would just listen and believe. Daily, I see kids making a difference. I see them overcoming obstacles and then helping their peers over theirs. Kids these days don’t necessarily do what we want them to do, but, they more often than not, do what needs to be done. They are leaving their mark whether we want to see it or not.

Q: Have you seen changes to the priorities, values and interests students have in the nearly 30 years you’ve been a teacher?

A: Yes and no. I really think kids are the same, they just present in different ways. I mean I have seen the hair and clothes styles from the early 90s come around again. If you put 1995 next to the seniors of 2023, I can identify the same kids – Academics, Athletics, Arts, Activities, obedient, defiant, workers, socializers, introverts, extroverts, etc. But over time, pagers became phones. Avoidance tactics have evolved. Kids are the same, but what they are overcoming is larger and harder and more consequential. I guess what has changed the most is those challenges. What kids are juggling today is beyond imagination. That is the most heartbreaking for me.

Q: You seem profoundly invested as both a teacher and a parent. What are the similarities between the two for you and what about the differences?

A: Becoming a parent made me a better teacher and being a teacher has made me a better parent. There is a difference but the weight of both positions is equally as heavy. We are a team – parents and teachers. Our job is to create the best, more productive, contributing adult. If we work together, our outcome would be even more amazing.

Q: What were the most difficult aspects for you as a teacher and supporter of kids when it came to the COVID-19 pandemic? What did you learn about yourself and your students when the crisis was at its peak?

A: We can overcome anything if we work together. I remember that day, March 13, like it was yesterday. The uncertainty, the fear, the sadness. I didn’t realize how important teaching and the kids were to me until I couldn’t do it anymore. As Scout says in “To Kill a Mockingbird” –“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” Teaching and seeing my kids grow is such a part of who I am and away from that, I struggled to find daily joy. We grasped for connection but we found a way to thrive. We realized that it wasn’t great, but it was going to be OK. We realized that we had to reset, change our thinking and alter our sense of normal. This helped us prioritize. We had to change our frame, but we found our joy again. One of my teachers once told me to “Find the beauty in a mud puddle.” I feel like that was Covid in the classroom. We had to find beauty and we did.

Q: Ridgeline High School is now in its second year with many kids who either would have gone to CV or attended CV before now part of the campus in Liberty Lake. How has that transition affected the culture and environment at CV from what you’ve seen?

A: It’s nice to be able to breathe again! The halls don’t look like a fish ladder and high run. It was easy to be invisible when the school was so packed. It was frenetic and loud. There was no place to find calm. Now, in our calm and controlled crazy, we can re-create our vision and climate. After Covid, our “We have always’ disappeared. Our upperclassmen were underclassmen when Covid hit. We had minimal organizational memory as far as the kids go. This allowed us to ask ourselves who we are and what we do. It has been nice to find ourselves again.

Q: As you teach and work with students who will be the future leaders and difference-makers in our society, what brings you hope?

A: Just that! They are our future. Every single one of them has the power and capacity for greatness. This greatness is self-designed. There isn’t an answer or a prototype. There is no right way. They can be who they want to be and do what they want to do. I cannot change the world, but they can. That brings me hope. They bring me hope. There isn’t a day that I don’t love my job and that is because of the possibilities they show me.