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Middletown High School's new principal, Jay Berno, was instilled with a fierce sense of competitiveness as a sprint swimmer by his coach at Southern Illinois University.

That competitive spirit has served him well in the professional arena, imbuing him with infectious enthusiasm and a willingness to tackle challenges.

"My coach told us, ‘I will take you to the breaking point and then I will watch you recover and the faster you recover the better you are,'" he explained.

Throughout his 34-year education career, Berno has used that diehard motto, combined recently with a global perspective, to improve the schools he has helmed.

Berno spent 18 years as a special education teacher and principal at Frederick High School and nine years as principal at Walkersville High School. Most recently, he helped Tuscarora High School open in the Frederick area, and spent five years as its principal. The Buckeystown resident has as much experience as almost anyone in building-level leadership in Frederick County.

The prevailing wisdom is that principals thrive for about five years at a new school – enacting important changes and bringing a new philosophy – but after that period, a new face can bring a renewed freshness, Berno said.

So, Berno exchanged places with former Middletown High School Principal Kathleen Schlappal, who took over his position as principal at Tuscarora High School. Frederick County Public Schools announced the personnel change before the end of the school year in order to allow Berno and Schlappal time to acclimate to the inner workings of their new schools and to meet their leadership teams.

A surfer, sailor, fly-fisherman and avid swimmer Berno, 58, was raised in Pasadena, Calif. He swims laps with four colleagues every morning at 5 a.m., and competed in the 1968 Olympic Trials in the 100-meter freestyle event. He has an active mind as well, and he speaks of his role as principal in the context of the globalized world and high technology.

"My largest goal is to prepare the students for their future. I'm talking about their future, not the future we lived. There are three things driving our world today. One is population growth on the planet. Mother Earth has a limited amount of resources and everybody's competing for them," he said.

"The second thing is technology is changing at such a fast pace that right now kids can access information off their cell phones faster than you can get it in a computer lab. The other thing is information … The rapidly changing world means we need to be more adaptable."

Berno's enthusiasm and approach seem to rub off on his colleagues, said Assistant Principal Donna Clabaugh, who affectionately described Berno as a "force of nature."

"I worked with Jay as a brand-new teacher at Walkersville [High School] and I have to admit that he scared me a little bit because he's very enthusiastic," she said. "[But] Jay has 34 years of experience, too, so being able to bring all that to a school like Middletown [High School] is going to be very beneficial in getting those kids who aren't being successful to help us reach that 100 percent goal for successful students."

Achieving that 100 percent student success rate is one of Berno's greatest goals for the high school. By 2014, he hopes that Middletown High School's students, which are already some of the highest performing in the county, will step up their efforts and that every single one will meet minimum high school standards.

"Middletown High School is the highest-achieving school in Frederick County," he said, "But it's plateaued. It's been at the 95 percent proficient level for a number of years but we need to address that last 5 percent and that's the hardest part."

This "hard-core" approach, as he refers to it, has translated into positive relationships with teachers, parents and students since starting at the school last month, he said. And he is big on personal connections – in order to assist with the last 5 percent still underachieving, he has streamlined the programs set up to help them, and assigned them in small groups to individual teachers, so they cannot fall through the cracks as easily.

Berno, whose two sons are 22 and 24, married his girlfriend of five years, Doreen, in February. He says he is committed to his new school – he has no intention of moving up to higher administrative office – and he plans to do everything to improve it.

"Because of my competitive swimming background I am very competitive and because this last 5 percent is the biggest challenge, that's what I thrive on.

"I thrive on the challenge and I've got really good people here that have communicated to me that they're willing to accept the challenge and to achieve every student here being successful," he said.