Pat Felger’s job isn’t about rules, it’s about people.

As one of two deans of students at Oak Harbor High School she’s tasked with keeping the campus a safe learning environment. That means dealing with more serious discipline issues and some of the more unpleasant aspects that inevitably happen in a school with 1,500 teenagers.

“In general, most of the time a dean calls a home, it’s not good news,” said Principal Dwight Lundstrom.

After 25 years, she plans to retire. Her last day at the office is June 23. She’s held the job so long, she’s now seeing the children of teenagers she remembers from years past.

While others might see only the heartbreak or stress inherent in her job, she sees the good inherent in young people.

“I have a strong faith and to me, it’s like a ministry,” she said. “You don’t talk about God or faith, but you live who you are by that. Every kid who walks into my office receives unconditional love. They might have done something horrific, or not, but no matter what you care about them as a person.”

That’s reflected in the way she talks about her work. Students aren’t “bad” or “good” — they are people she cares about.

“I love to work with these kids,” Felger said. “It’s the most amazing thing.”

Felger was raised in New York state, the daughter of a nurse and a principal. She was first hired by the district in 1988 to handle school suspensions at Oak Harbor Junior High.

A few years later, former principal Dick Devlin created two dean of students positions at the high school. She’s been in the job ever since.

Felger and fellow dean Linda Otruba are the “mama bears” of the high school, who have students’ best interests at heart, the principal said. It’s not about following rules as much as steering kids toward success. The deans work closely with teachers, counselors, administrators and the school resource officer to investigate wrong doing and get kids set back on the right path.

On a typical day, Felger might be meeting with students, parents or teachers, strolling the hallways, supervising lunch or calming a tense situation.

She’s put her wirey 5-foot, 2-inch frame between two burly teenagers exchanging heated words, pulled brawling girls apart and once hopped on top of a table during a vicious food fight.

“She has her ear to the ground,” the principal said. “She’s hearing what the kids are talking about and she knows how to investigate.”

In the past, she’s uncovered a fight club ring and illegal drug sales because students trusted her enough to talk, Lundstrom said.

She’s seen tremendous change during her career. When she first started, she thumbed through paper files to find information on students and only three phone lines ran into the high school. There was no student handbook and her office was a tiny, windowless closet.

Today she describes her office, which looks out onto a central campus courtyard, as a “triage center,” a safe place to deal with any troubles. On her walls hang the bits and baubles that make up her life personal and professional: “thank you” notes, student art work, a cut out of a Volkswagen bug, a Washington Trail Association poster, and a sign that reminds visitors: “Holding a grudge is letting someone live rent-free in your head.”

Anything she needs is available on her smart phone. But that same technology has created a plethora of problems for teenagers with social media and bullying. School administrators have worked hard to change the culture of the school to encourage older kids to lead and be examples to underclassmen. As a whole, Oak Harbor High School is a safer, calmer place.

Long gone are the days when students regularly turned to fisticuffs in the hallway, she said.

On Monday she wandered the campus at lunch time, stopping to chat with knots of students, giving high fives and calling out “hello” to students by name. A few students hanging around the gym entrance started to playfully roughhouse. She zoomed over for a calm chat, doing what she called “redirecting.”

“Mrs. Felger is cool, she helps a lot of students,” said Zoren Yabao, a senior. At lunchtime, he stopped to joke around with Felger, telling her she has a “swag walk” and then demonstrated his best impression.

“She expects us to behave like an adult and she treats us like an adult,” he said.

Many students remember Felger long after graduation. She once had a former student chase her down in a parking lot to apologize for his behavior in high school. It’s not just the kids who were frequently in her office for the wrong reasons.

Ashley Smith Ashley was an honor student who graduated in 2007. She got to know Felger through her church youth group and the school’s community-service Key Club.

“I know how much she loved students,” Ashley said. “It wasn’t the punishment she cared about. She saw discipline as an important way to mold society. She didn’t think she was doing them any favors by letting them get away with inappropriate behavior.”

Ashley described the dean as brave.

“If we had a lock down or a bomb threat, she was the one locking down the building,” she said. “I always felt safe if she were in charge.”

Ashley and some of her friends thanked their favorite club adviser by filling her office with glitter-filled balloons.

Felger is still finding glitter today.

Felger’s father, who used the G.I. Bill to become a teacher and eventually a principal, influenced her philosophy for working with students. His diploma hangs in her office. She rarely raises her voice and students behave because she expects them too.

“My dad was a good listener and a problem solver,” she said. “He got along well but he didn’t put up with anybody’s garbage. He was the first one to straighten things up and in a lot of ways I guess I do too.”

She won’t be still in retirement. At age 66, she remains an athlete who loves rock climbing and cycling. She’ll continue to play string bass for the Whidbey Playhouse and spend her summers at Tall Timber Ranch, where she works with young people as a camp medic.

She has a teaching certificate and will continue to work occasionally as a substitute in the classroom. She’s got a 1966 Volkswagen bug — painted Savannah Beige — waiting to be restored in her garage.

“The biggest challenge to retiring is learning how to let go of something you created,” she said.

“It’s like sending a baby off to college.”