Laura Lasa started as a student at Lexington High School. After graduating from Springfield College, she returned to LHS as a physical education teacher. Lasa began filling more and more roles at LHS, becoming a dean, associate principal, and in 2012, the principal of LHS before retiring in 2017.

Now, ten years later, she has returned to LHS as a school dean.

“I came in August, just when they were down three deans for different reasons, to be able to fill some of the gaps and hopefully make a dean’s transition back pretty easy,” Lasa said.

While there have been many changes to the responsibilities of a dean since she originally held the role, Lasa believes the biggest change since her arrival is the school’s stressful environment. She recognizes that it is something that both the staff and students are affected by.

“What’s different is, without a doubt, the pressure that kids feel to be perfect. When I was here in 1981, or even when I was a student here, that was much more downplayed. That idea that making a mistake is not okay is just prevalent everywhere. It’s nobody’s fault; it’s just in the fabric of the place,” Lasa said.

While LHS’s current competitive nature is more foreign to Lasa, its environment made Lasa feel like she has returned home.

“[It’s] like coming back to a house you lived in for a long time and other people lived there a little bit, so there were parts of it that were really familiar and there were parts of it that were really different,” Lasa said.

Now that LHS’s deans are returning, Lasa plans to return to retirement. Despite her short stay, Lasa’s time in LHS was a meaningful experience.

“The best part of it really, to be honest, was to be able to work with kids again. I really enjoyed that part, and to connect with both old and new colleagues,” Lasa said.