ST. GEORGE — Crimson Cliffs Middle School Principal Brian Stevenson has been named a Principal of the Year for 2024.
The honor comes from the Utah Association of Secondary School Principals who honored three principals for 2024 who have outstanding dedication and leadership in education.
Although Stevenson will be honored at a future Utah State Board of Education board meeting and presenting at the UASSP Summer Conference in June, Crimson Cliffs Middle School faculty and students decided to show their appreciation with a surprise celebration of their own.
They secretly turned the school’s media center into a ceremony room with balloons and posters dedicated to him. But they needed to make sure Stevenson didn’t wander in by chance, so they sent a teacher out for reconnaissance.
“They just sat in my office and started asking me some questions,” he said. “And they were weird questions — I didn’t know where the conversation was going.”
The distraction worked, but now they needed a reason for needing him in the media center. It just so happened that months prior a medical emergency had taken place in the same building, also requiring Stevenson to respond.
So one of his staff members decided another faux emergency might do the trick. Stevenson said the rouse convinced him, and he sprinted to the media center.
When he reached the top of the staircase the surprise was completed with confetti poppers and applause.
“I was in shock that they surprised me,” he said. “Having all those people there meant the world to me.”
For Stevenson, the journey of education is not just about academic achievement but creating bonds with the students.
“Seeing kids grow both socially, confidence-wise and academically is amazing,” he said. “I’ve seen it year after year.”
Working closer with eighth-grade and ninth-grade students has allowed him to guide them through an important time in their lives.
“When we talk about that teenage year between middle school and high school, I think it’s a critical time for students where they’re experiencing a lot of life changes and a lot of growth both physically and emotionally,” he said.
He empathizes with that age group due to his upbringing and tries to be a resource to all who feel uncertain about themselves.
“I was the most awkward middle school student,” Stevenson said. “So I recognize the importance of making students feel like they have trusted adults on campus.”
He said what makes navigating the challenges of that demographic a successful venture is his faculty who does everything they can to help.
Stevenson has been in Utah’s education system for 28 years in many different roles. He has been a teacher, assistant principal and principal at Desert Hills Middle School for 11 years before coming to Crimson Cliffs Middle School six years ago. Under his administration, both schools achieved national recognition as Solution Tree Model Professional Learning Community Schools.
After graduating from Southern Utah University, Stevenson began his teaching career at Pine View Middle School. His journey in education has taken him in various roles, from teaching to serving as an athletic director and assistant principal at Snow Canyon High School.
He now serves as a principal, a position he was selected to lead where he aids the district’s middle school principals in helping students and teachers continue to improve and learn.
While he says he enjoys being a leader of his peers, he noted that guiding the students gives him the most pride.
“In those 28 years as both a teacher, assistant principal, and then principal of two different schools,” Stevenson said. “It is a true connectedness that I feel emotional about year after year.”
He was very moved at the end of his first teaching year.
“I sat in the front of my classroom knowing that they were moving on to the next level and I wasn’t gonna be their teacher anymore,” he said. “As I was talking to them, I started crying. I’ve got all these middle school kids looking at me like there’s something wrong with me and I realized, man, I gotta not do this every year.”
Regardless, Stevenson says he does. Every year, it grounds him.
“When I stop feeling that way at the end of the year is when I need to get out,” he said. “But I love it just as much today as I did back then.”
Stevenson and two other middle school principals will be presenting at the UASSP Summer Conference in June and honored at a future Utah State Board of Education board meeting.
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