Donald Henry Reddick, 80; Walter Johnson High Principal

Donald Henry Reddick, 80, who as principal of Walter Johnson High School from the late 1960s through 1981 created an open and relatively unstructured atmosphere at the school, died July 30 at Buckingham's Choice Health Care Center in Adamstown. He had coronary artery disease.

Dr. Reddick was hailed as a "student's principal" who enjoyed the ideas of rebellious students, allowed students to go off-campus for lunch, abolished the dress code and hall monitors, and let students, rather than computers, make their class schedules.

"Of course kids slip through" the relaxed academic environment, he said in a Washington Post article upon his 1981 retirement. "They exist. They existed before. But we've provided an opportunity" for their development.

The year before, he joked at graduation that half the students probably didn't even know who he was.

A longtime champion of education, Dr. Reddick was a past president of the Montgomery County Education Association.

He was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., and served in the Navy. He graduated from the University of Maryland, where he also received a master's degree in education in the early 1950s. He received a doctorate of education from George Washington University in 1965 .

Dr. Reddick taught and was a guidance counselor before becoming principal of Leland Junior High School in Bethesda. In 1966, he moved to the top spot at Walter Johnson.

The teachers were not always supportive of Dr. Reddick's innovations. However, he joined the picket lines in a 1968 teachers' strike and later formed the Faculty Association, which gave teachers a voice in school policy.

He urged the parents association, which was rewriting its list of priorities in response to budget cuts, to stick with several long-desired projects.

When students acted out, he found ways to engage them as thinking humans. When students stole the school's big gates after an assistant principal locked them out, Dr. Reddick installed new gates but never closed them. He then extended the lunch period, which allowed clubs to meet, gave teachers time to confer with students, and provided space for occasional guest speakers.

Another time, an assistant principal took a long-haired student to his office and ordered him to get a haircut. The boy, full of 1968 righteousness, threatened to call a lawyer. Dr. Reddick was called in, and he discussed the relevance of short hair to educational achievement. Soon the hair rule and the dress code were things of the past.

Dr. Reddick taught part time at George Washington University after his retirement.

Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Jean Bible Reddick of Frederick; two daughters, Linda Brainerd of Frederick and Nancy Reddick of Sperryville; and three grandchildren.