Assistant Principal Joe Kish doesn't go looking for attention - he goes looking to help others

Joe Kish isn't the kind of guy who says, hey, look at me.

Try to get him to talk about himself and he's quick to step out of the spotlight and shine it on someone else.

Chat with those who know him, though, and they'll tell you he's Franklin Middle School's biggest cheerleader, a passionate educator who regularly goes above and beyond to help teachers and students - both in and out of the school setting.

He's someone, they say, who literally would give the shirt off his back to someone in need.

Ask around and you'll discover countless examples of how the assistant principal has helped make his Wheaton school, and the community around it, a better place.

Ask around and folks will tell you he's someone to be thankful for, someone to be celebrated.

Kish doesn't go looking for attention - he goes looking to help others.

He's that kind of guy.

A positive influence

Three years ago, Kish was searching for ways to reach out to students who otherwise wouldn't be involved in extracurricular activities.

After reviewing the results of a student survey and seeing a lot of kids arrive at school on their skateboards, he realized a skate club could help draw them in. And so he helped create one.

"We believe at Franklin that every kid has a hook," he says, "and we try to find it."

In 2013, he helped get a memorial rock installed in front of the school to honor a beloved crossing guard - Anthony Ghilarducci, or Mr. G to the children - who died unexpectedly that year.

"I just think that's the right thing to do for people that make a difference," he says.

This past spring he was a driving force behind raising $15,000 for a student-led dodgeball fundraiser for pediatric brain cancer research, held in honor of a classmate, Ross MacNeill, who died from the disease before he could attend Franklin.

"That is still something I'm as proud of as anything in my career," says Kish, who also serves as a volunteer coach for Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football teams, including some that have won state championships. Pictures of players on those teams remain on display in his office at Franklin.

Those who know him describe Kish as a person with good moral character, a positive influence on impressionable kids and a compassionate supporter of families.

"Generally, if you're not getting in trouble, you don't know who the assistant principal is, because what they do mostly is handle discipline," says languages arts teacher and skate club sponsor Paul Boucher. "But he's out there in the school, all the kids know who he is, they're used to seeing him in the building. He knows more than just the kids who get in trouble."

That's a goal Kish has worked toward since transferring from Wheaton Warrenville South - where he worked for 16 years as an aide, history teacher and dean - to Franklin in 2007.

"Really, one of the worst parts of a job for an assistant principal or a dean is typically when you're picking the phone up and calling, it's with bad news. It wears on you," Kish says.

"I've tried to do some things, a lot of things, like getting involved with the dodgeball group, student council," he says. "Selfishly, that's been important for me professionally as well. You never want to be in a position where when people hear you, when the phone rings, it's like, 'oh no.' And I think we've done a lot to overcome that to a certain extent here."

Language arts teacher Liz Fisher says Kish isn't the kind of assistant principal who sits in his office and stays set in his ways. He's open to new ideas and regularly works to form positive relationships with all the students.

"They know him because he's out in the halls, he's at lunch, he's in classrooms," she says.

Eighth-grader Jacob Secrest says Kish is like a doughnut.

"He's rough around the edges," Jacob says, "but inside he's like jelly."

Thanking others

Nancy Gambaiani, a former Franklin parent, has seen Kish at work from several perspectives.

There was the time her own family was going through difficulties and he went out of his way to help.

In another instance, Kish got wind of a former student contemplating suicide and made sure to stop by the student's house and talk to her parents to alert them to what was going on.

And, of course, there was the time when young Ross MacNeill was being treated for brain cancer. Kish not only offered help to the family during that ordeal, but continues to offer support even though Ross's older sister has graduated from Franklin.

"He doesn't like to take credit in a lot of places, which he should, because he's done a lot for the community and this district," Gambaiani says.

It's clear Kish is a special person in the Franklin community. But talk with him and the conversation becomes more about the people he is grateful for: teachers he works with, mentors, longtime friends and family.

"I'm very thankful I have a hardworking mom and dad," he says. "They were raised in a coal-mining patch town in southwestern Pennsylvania. In many ways they were poor.

"People back there work for what they get, and we're in a day and age right now in public schools where there just isn't money, and it's not even worth pointing fingers at why that is, but I think there are always ways that you can overcome that," he says.

So Kish has gone to work to help out with school funding. Hard work.

Two years ago, after a bad storm around the Fourth of July, he drove through town, searching for people in need of an extra hand. He brought along a chain saw and started cutting up fallen trees and threw the wood into the bed of his beat-up blue pickup truck.

"Getting out and being part of the larger community is always something that's been huge to me as an educator," he says.

Since then he has spent hundreds of hours after school sorting through the wood. He reached out to tree companies asking if they could provide him with more supplies so he could launch a firewood fundraiser. It's been wildly popular, generating about $5,000 in two years.

"(With other fundraisers) you're asking kids to go out and sell stuff that the school is typically keeping about 35 percent or 40 percent of the profits, and I have a hard time putting kids in that position," Kish says.

"I just kind of had the idea one day: What's something people would buy regardless, where you have a captive market, and the idea of selling firewood came into my mind."

The money has been used for things Kish says he "doesn't expect taxpayers to pay for," such as providing incentives for students.

On Fridays, for example, several kids receive a prize in recognition of their literacy achievements. Many of the kids at the school are refugees from war-torn countries who are passionate about soccer, so Kish has purchased a bunch of soccer balls, knowing they likely will choose that as their reward.

'It's a privilege'

The bottom line for Kish is pretty simple: Every day working as an assistant principal is a day to help others.

"It's really just about talking to kids at a key age about good decision making, being empathetic, helping others, self management, being respectful, you know, just in general being a good person," he says.

But then he quickly turns the attention away from himself and toward others.

"I feel this is a school community where the kids, our staff and parents just go above and beyond looking out for each other," he says. "It's a privilege to work at a place like this."