Brian Finney: Tech and Student Support

            Many students know Brian Finney from his job as a computer technician, but his impact on T.C. goes way beyond the students help desk.  Finney is one of those school administrators whose job goes way beyond what they do during the school day.  Not only does he help fix computers, but he also helps to mentor students who are having personal and school-related trouble.  Following in the footsteps his mother (Barbara Finney who left last year), Finney has tried to reach out and make connections with students who he thinks need his help.  “I’m a good person, my doors are always open,” Finney says. 

            Even though Finney himself did not go to T.C. (he went to school in Maryland), he seems to be making a good connection with the students.  “I try to talk to them, pull them aside, make sure everything’s okay,” he says of his relationships with students.  “If I know that they have any problems at home, I try to talk to them and see what the problem is.”  Although his goal to try and save every at-risk student seems a little out of reach, Finney has had one major accomplishment: “I have never had a student that disrespected me,” he said.

            Earlier this year, Finney had a sit-down with some of the gang members at the school to try and work out a truce to stop fighting.  “They gave me a truce that they wouldn’t fight for a couple of months, but I never went to the administrators and told [them] that I had sat down and talked to all the gang members,” he said.  He wanted to make sure that everyone understood and that there was complete confidentiality in all their conversations, as with all the other talks he has with students throughout the school.

            Finney wants all the staff and teachers to know “that if they have any problems with any of the students, they can always come and get me and I’ll talk to them, try to help whoever it is, and try to find out what’ going on.”  This ambassadorial approach to the relationship between students and teachers seems to be working because Finney has nothing but good things to say about the students he works with.  The only thing he really wants to students to do is “to stop being disrespectful to all the staff, stop fighting, and watch how they dress.”